‘I lost more money than anybody in the history of capitalism!’: Remembering Ted Turner

Ted Turner, who died this Wednesday at 87, didn’t do anything halfway. In October of 2006, I got to spend a memorable evening alongside Ted Turner at the opening of his Ted’s Montana Grill Restaurant in midtown Manhattan. I was invited as a “plus-one” by close friend and fellow Fortune writer Pattie Sellers, who’d profiled Turner for the magazine, and hence scored an invite. (Pattie was the pioneering journalist in highlighting women’s achievements as founder of the Fortune “Most Powerful Women in Business” list and our renowned annual conference by that name.) The eatery happened to be situated an elevator ride from our 16th floor offices, on the ground floor of the Time & Life Building. Pattie and I walked from the art-deco style lobby into an 18th-century saloon-style fantasia featuring all manner of bison recipes from pot roast to short ribs to steak frites. Turner owned one of the world’s largest bison herds and championed the fare these bearded beasts provided as a healthier and tastier alternative to beef, while boasting his Grills offered an oasis of “Big Sky sustainability”—plastic straws, no way—amid the canyon of skyscrapers. When we arrived, Turner was the only other person in the restaurant. He’d played a huge role in building the Time Warner media empire I worked for (Fortune belonged to one of its largest divisions, magazine-maker Time, Inc.), and I’d always wondered about the circumstances regarding his sudden, acrimonious departure five years earlier. To recap the main outline: Turner had sold Turner Broadcasting, owner of CNN, TBS, TNT and the Cartoon Network, to Time Warner in 1996, pocketing around $7.5 billion in the acquirer’s stock. But in 2001, following Time Warner’s sale to AOL, CEO Jerry Levin effectively fired Turner by stripping him of all management authority. Here’s what puzzled me: When Turner sold his creation to Time Warner, he amassed ar