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While Turner the businessman recovered quickly from his father's death, the inner man has been deeply, almost obsessively affected. Says a friend: "He talks about death incessantly. Over the years, killing himself was a high-priority topic of conversation. Most of the time he was flippant about it. He would talk in this joking way about how, if things did not work out, he could always sell the business, how all he needed was a roof over his head and some food. Then he would say, 'If things get really bad, I can always kill myself.' He could not go several days without talking about suicide."
Things have not, however, gone badly. Ted Turner proved far more adept than even his father at the billboard business. As the money rolled in, he looked for new pursuits. One was world-class sailing. Eventually he competed as far away as Australia, often for months each year. His long absences were possible only through the boundless patience of his second wife Jane, who raised his two children by a first marriage (which ended in divorce about two decades ago) and three of their own with a stoic emphasis on her role in providing "stability." She recalls ruefully such times as the three consecutive Christmases when the children (the youngest is now 13) were ocean orphans because Turner was away sailing. "He never had to worry about our children," she says. "I did that for both of us."
By the time Turner was 30 he had found his next challenge: broadcasting. He then got into sports when he bought the right to broadcast Atlanta Braves games; the sportscasts proved popular, so to keep the money-losing team in town, and on the air, he acquired the Braves outright. Later he picked up the Atlanta Hawks basketball team and financed the purchase of a now defunct soccer team, carrying their games on the station that he eventually renamed WTBS, for Turner Broadcasting System. Then came the idea for the supremely lucrative Superstation.
As it grew, Turner succeeded in another high-cost, high-risk challenge: the America's Cup, yachting's premier prize, which he lost in 1974 but won in 1977. No money could buy the publicity he enjoyed during the summer when he won. Turner was quotable and accessible; he was a hard-cussin' ordinary guy competing in a tight-lipped rich man's sport. He acted like Captain Bligh with his crew, and they seemed to love him for it. On the day he won, he showed up at a press conference roaring drunk. When someone moved his bottle of aquavit out of view of the cameras, Turner dropped under the table to retrieve it. He was amiably, gloriously outrageous.
But when the Turner family watches a documentary about the months he spent seeking the Cup in Newport, R.I., Jane makes a short, undeniable observation: There is not a glimpse of her or their children anywhere in the film. Ted Turner considers himself a devoted husband and father, but the price of his ambition is paid as much by his family as by himself. He travels on business some part of every week. He schedules every day, whether he is at the family's home in Atlanta or at the 5,000-acre plantation in Jacksonboro, S.C., where the Turners spend about half their time. Still, at the country retreat Jane Turner