Montana writer Todd Wilkinson spent seven years writing the definitive biography of Ted Turner, who died recently at age 87. Turner was a complicated and accomplished man, he says, not just for starting CNN and 24-hour news, building a major league baseball team, his hometown Atlanta Braves, and starting a foundation run by former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth to strengthen the United Nations.
Above all else, Wilkinson says Turner loved the West’s open lands and wanted to protect them for bison and all wildlife. As his former wife Jane Fonda put it, he wanted to be known as “a good guy."