If Orson Welles’s 1941 film Citizen Kane had been made as a TV movie 60 years later, its Kane would have been Ted Turner. Thanks to Welles, the figure of William Randolph Hearst, who dominated the American media world in the early part of the 20th century, is now better remembered for the flamboyant personal life portrayed on film.
Turner, who has died aged 87, was luckier. Although his good looks were often compared to Clark Gable’s playing Rhett Butler and his personal life was equally interesting, he is likely to be remembered primarily as one of the great innovators of television.
