Posted on 05/12/2026 10:30:13 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Ted Turner built a media empire in Atlanta that included Turner Classic Movies.
Turner’s favorite classic movie was “Gone with the Wind.”
He loved the movie so much that he bought the entire catalogue of movies from MGM Studios and pre-1948 Warner Brothers so he could air them and preserve them.
“My favorite ex-husband created Turner Classic Movies,” ex-wife and close friend Jane Fonda said last week at the 2026 TCM Film Festival in Los Angeles.
Fonda talked about Turner’s love of classic movies and how he wanted to preserve them for future generations.
“On our very first date, he talked to me about Turner Classic Movies,” Fonda said. “And I think it’s one of the great things that he did.”
“He was the quintessential American,” said Charlie Tabesh, TCM’s senior vice president of programming & content strategy.
The TCM executive has worked for Turner for nearly 30 years. He told Channel 2’s Richard Elliot that the network is planning to honor Turner with a tribute and will show his favorite movie, “Gone with the Wind.”
“He’s a true hero in terms of film preservation. And then, after starting these businesses, he hired the right people, and he let them go, and he left them to run with it,” Tabesh said.
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I still say Ted was the guy who built the Georgia Guidestones, just a short distance away from his grandma’s place, and he’s the guy who had them blown up when the general public started paying attention to its depopulationist message.
Ted Turner was a visionary who anticipated the demand for “content”
All those classic movies he bought up for restoration and colorization were sitting in vaults deteriorating and were considered worthless at the time.
He saved some real masterpieces from destruction.
Very true. That was a very good thing he did.
>> “He was the quintessential American”
Oh please.
Unfortunately, Turner’s other legacy lives on too - CNN.
Frankly, Jane...
But, seriously, I’ve been able to watch or re-watch a ton of pre-1960s movies on YouTube. Saw “Pushover” with Fred MacMurray and Kim Novak last night.
I don’t know how much of this is Turner’s to thank but he had the vision to restore and show a lot of film that would have otherwise been forgotten.
TCM is fantastic and I have to agree it was a brilliant move on TTs part.
No, they weren't.
Turner created TCM in 1994.
By then, videocassettes and 100+ channel cable systems had already convinced the studios that old movies were not worthless.
Also, many film lovers and Hollywood directors and cinematographers hated Turner, and considered him a philistine, because he colorized old black & white films.
He didn’t lose the America Cup for the first time ever like Captain Stupid did..
I enjoyed “Gods And Generals” and “Gettysburg”, both bankrolled by Ted. But the “Lost Cause” narrative in both is a little hard not to notice. But if you view them taking that into account they’re still good entertainment.
CC
Forgotten? Film deteriorates over time - lots of those movies would have ceased to exist. Ted Turner 'did good' on this one.
Still doesn’t offset the evil of CNN.
There are many things I don’t like about Ted Turner, but for this I think he did us all some good. Over the years I watched many old movies on his channel. Today, Youtube has taken over for him (free old movies, unfortunately without the restoration).
It’s a shame he didn’t finish his Civil War trilogy.
Not saying it did.
CC
His movie channel and his old rassling show were the only good things about him. That I know of that is.
Restoration and digitising the films have kept the classics rolling. Regarding any era, the host of “Jeopardy!” has been a TCM convention regular, whether it was Trebek or Jennings. I have to think Ken Jennings got Alex Trebek’s TCM pass and as they say In Flanders Fields, taken the falling torch from Alex’s hand and held it high.
One of AEW’s most famous storylines, the Mariah May (now WWE’s Blake Monroe) and Toni Storm feud of 2023-25, was based around 1950 films — “Sunset Boulevard” (Paramount) and “All About Eve” (Disney). Tony Khan asked Bryan Danielson if he had seen either — the American Dragon had not. But somehow Tony was just as much a TCM devotee and picked up TCM ideas into AEW.
Without the restoration, there would be no Timeless Toni Storm. And there would have been no wrestling interpretation of old movie storylines.
Having these films in unadulterated form restored is a must in an era when classics are being revised to remove what offends postmodern police.
“Ted Turner was a visionary who anticipated the demand for “content” “
BINGO! Those old movies have very good plots and great acting that are not dependent upon bloody violence, perversion, foul language, raw sex and political propaganda.
Movie restoration is what I will remember Turner for. Unfortunately his downside was CNN and Hanoi Jane.
I recall watching CNN in its early days and do not thing it was full all out left wing back then. I have a feeling CNN took the left turn about the time he hooked up with Fonda.
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