Ted Turner

Media mogul Ted Turner built a broadcasting and entertainment empire that reshaped the multimedia landscape throughout the 1980s and '90s. Building on his family business, Turner turned a failing Atlanta-based UHF channel into TBS, America's first "Superstation." Already the owner of Atlanta's MLB and NBA franchises, Turner achieved fame as the winner of America's Cup in 1977. Three years later, he launched CNN, the world's first 24-hour news network. More bold acquisitions and gutsy startups followed, typified by three-letter acronyms like MGM, TNT, TCM and WCW. In addition to his business ventures, Turner made news for his philanthropic pursuits. Turner began to see a shift not only in his relationship with the company he built, but with his personal fortune as well, after successive mergers with Time Warner, Inc. and AOL. By 2006, he had completely stepped away from duties at the media company, choosing to devote his energies to such ecological enterprises as his Turner Foundation and penning his autobiography. Truly a man of astounding ambition and fierce resolve, Turner was sure to be remembered as one of the greatest entrepreneur-philanthropist-rabble rousers in American history.