CNN founder Ted Turner, a brash and outspoken television pioneer, has died at age 87

Ted Turner, a brash and outspoken television pioneer who raced yachts, owned huge chunks of the American West and transformed the news business by launching CNN and introducing the 24-hour news cycle, died Wednesday. He was 87.

Turner died surrounded by his family, according to Turner Enterprises, the company that oversees his vast business interests and investments.

Turner owned professional sports teams in Atlanta, defended the America’s Cup in yachting in 1977 and donated a stunning $1 billion to United Nations charities. He married three women — most famously actor Jane Fonda — and earned the nicknames “Captain Outrageous” and “The Mouth of the South.”

He once bragged: “If only I had a little humility, I’d be perfect.”

He was slowed in later years by Lewy body dementia. Long since out of the television business, he concentrated on philanthropy and his more than 2 million acres of property, including the