Ted Turner

American entrepreneur, one of the 400 wealthiest persons in the U.S., worth over $6.9 billion and the owner of Turner Broadcasting, CNN, two sports teams and some of MGM, a self-made mogul. Controversial and bombastic, he is known as "Ted the Terrible," "Captain Outrageous" and "Mouth of the South." Tending to talk first, think later, he is hard-drinking and loves attention.

His dad, a driven, demanding man who pushed Turner to do more, committed suicide at age 53. He lost his only sister to lupus in the 1980's. A super-patriot and iconoclast, he was raised by his dad to view insecurity as the secret of success. When his dad shot himself to death on 5 March 1963, Turner took over the family bankrupt billboard business. Gradually, he moved into his entrepreneurial position in TV stations and baseball teams.

While a student at Brown University, Turner developed a passion for the classics and immersed himself in Virgil and Homer. He had come to see himself as a kind of latter-day Odysseus who feels that his life will end before its time. His major battles have been against nuclear weapons and for peace, population control and environmental causes.

Approaching sports with the intensity that he puts into all his projects, Turner bought the Atlanta Braves baseball team in 1966 and the following year, the Atlanta Hawks basketball team. An avid ocean racer, he holds four Yachtsman of the Year titles. He organized the Goodwill Games, international athletic competitions that began in 1986 in Moscow. The second games featured more than 2,500 athletes from 40 nations competing in 21 sports, set in Seattle, WA, 1990. As the founder of CNN television, he transmits low-cost sports and entertainment programs via satellite to cable systems across the country.

He was married to Janie Smith Turner for 22 years. A womanizer, he went through several marriages.