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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Seen any of them lately? Nobody shows them. When TBS showed them it was with a 50% mix of advertising and content.
”Don’t date communists!” It was either Thales of Miletus, or maybe God in the Garden of Eden who first said it, but it remains sound advice to this day.
“Also, many film lovers and Hollywood directors and cinematographers hated Turner, and considered him a philistine, because he colorized old black & white films.”
Yes, it is true he colorized some movies — I don’t recall that the colorizations went over too well.
As a businessman it was smart as the color versions could be copyrighted and receive residual fees.
No charge and not that many ads
Can't believe how good some of those old flicks are. Much better than the current trend of unending woke Marvel sequels like Spider Man 44 To Spider Girl 1 - How Peety Parker Finds The Ultimate Rainbow Spider Suit.
The old movies were generally pretty good. Down to earth, non-politicized story telling.
When Hollywood had writers not deal makers.
Thank you! That will come in handy.
Could they? I remember some controversy at the time as to whether colorization was enough of a change to merit copyright protection. I don't know how the courts or copyright office finally ruled on it.
Agreed, in the early days CNN was just news.
It’s has changed completely since.
Sorry, but a lot of the MGM films were in serious decay. Many lost.
I wish tbs was a streamer like acorn.
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