BITS AND PIECES
By Reese Schonefeld

Ted Turner, from the United Nations Foundation website.

A Tale of Two Turners

My publisher has just called, a Hollywood studio is inquiring about the rights to Me And Ted Against The World. Ted gets the big star. What man in Hollywood would not like to play Ted Turner?

In light of that, I offer two stories that expand the role and give an actor a chance to read some lines he has always dreamed of.

There were times in Ted’s life when he showed signs of the acute depression or the maniac energy that plagued him.

Once, in the early eighties, Ted visited the TBS office in Chicago, seventy eight floors up in the Standard Oil building. TBS was running out of money. Advertisers were slow to respond and Ted was begging and scraping to keep CNN on the air.

The office windows went floor to ceiling and Ted walked over to the edge, looked down and said, “I see myself sailing down to the concrete. What a mess I would make.”

He went from there to a WGN radio interview, where he was asked once again about his father. “My father died violently,” said Ted. “Sometimes I find myself saying ‘I’ve got the Billboard Company, Dad. I’ve got two networks, Dad. Have I done enough? Am I success now Dad?’”

John Barbera has a very different story about Ted. In the late eighties, after Time Warner bought into TBS, a group of Time Warner executives led by Nick Nicholas, then Time Warner’s President, and Reg Brack, head of Time-Life, its magazine division, came down to Atlanta to kick the tires on their new investment.

TBS/CNN employees were invited to meet with their counterparts.

The Atlanta good-old-boy culture didn’t mesh with Time-Life’s Ivy League, button-down attitude.

On several occasions, Time Warner guys mentioned the three Rhodes Scholars in their group. Every time Ted heard “Rhodes Scholar”, he got a little more redneck, and by the end of the meeting, the Time Warner people were rolling their eyes behind his back.

That night, Ted hosted a dinner at the Atlanta Athletic Club for Nicholas and Time Life. Nick, a gentleman, and not a guy who looked down his nose at Ted, toasted him. He paid Ted honest tribute, congratulated him for his vision and accomplishments and confessed his admiration for Ted as an original and an entrepreneur.

Ted rose in reply, quoting Richard II in Shakepeare's play of the same name:

"For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison’d by their wives: some sleeping kill’d;
All murder’d : for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear’d and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour’d thus
Comes at the last with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?"

As Ted spoke, the Time Warner group seemed, first amazed, and then abashed.

They shifted in their seats and lowered their eyes.

TBS and CNN guys sat up prouder and prouder of their leader. Ted had outdone all those Time Warner Rhodes Scholars in aptness and erudition.

“They never treated us like hicks again,” said John Barbera.

I cannot imagine an actor who wouldn’t want to read Richard II’s lines, as delivered by Ted Turner. It’s gotta win him an Oscar.

Reese Schonfeld is the author of Me And Ted Against The World. He founded the Cable News Network with Ted Turner in 1979, and served as its first President and CEO. At CNN, he originated the 24 hour news concept. After leaving CNN, he developed News Twelve on Long Island, Newschannel 8, and the TV Food Network. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Schonfeld received M.A. and law degrees from Columbia University. He can be reached through his website, MeAndTed.com, where Bits and Pieces originally appears. Reprinted by permission.