Lead Follow or Get Out of the Way : The Story of Ted Turner

by Christian Williams

Probes the life and character of the Atlanta businessman whose drive and intense ambition led him to build a telecommunications empire, purchase and actively manage a professional baseball team and win the America's Cup.

282 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

In 15 years at The Washington Post Christian Williams served as arts editor of the Style Section and reporter on the investigative unit. In 1987 he moved to Los Angeles to write and produce television programs from "Hill Street Blues" to "Six Feet Under." He is the author of "Rarotonga," a novel (2019); "Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way," a biography of Ted Turner (Times Books, 1981); "Alone Together: Sailing Solo to Hawaii and Beyond" (East Wind Press, 2016) and "Philosophy of Sailing" (2018). Williams has four children and lives in Pacific Palisades, CA, with his spouse, Tracy Olmstead Williams.

Reviews

[Jared Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not really anything to gain from this book other than how terribly Ted turner treated women and how he became rich because of his dads money and friends at the yacht club…

[Christian Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author comments: This 1981 book investigates the drive, ebullience, technique and internal mechanisms of Turner as a buccaneer at the height of his powers. I pretty much lived with him through 1979-80, a period in which he created CNN and won the storm-ravaged Fastnet Race. Since I was aboard, that report is first-hand. Since I was a Washington Post editor on leave, the origin of the first 24-hour TV satellite news service was as much an unknown horizon to me as it was to him. Turner had verve and nerve, and despite his awkward social behavior and personal demons was a great teacher in the school of success, what it takes, what's worth it and more important, what's not. Starting a new business? "All your friends are going to try to talk you out of it. They don't want you to take risks, they don't want you fail." How far to push the borders of legality? "Don't do anything that when they take your picture you need to cover your face with your hat." The book is available now only used, and in 2019 Ted Turner the man wanes. But he did stuff. He thought big. He forged ahead and didn't look back. He boarded them in the smoke and suffered the wounds he gave as much as those he got. Lunatic? Sure. Vindictive lying scumbag of the current popular variety? Nope, never that I saw.