CITIZEN TURNER: THE WILD RISE OF AN AMERICAN TYCOON

by Robert Goldberg and Gerald Jay Goldberg

Edition History:

Harcourt Brace, NY, 1995.
(Jacket design by Vaughn Andrews)

Cidadao Turner
Portugese translation by Ana Deiró
Distribuidora Record, Rio de Janeiro, 1997.

Excerpts from Citizen Turner appeared in slightly altered form in
Playboy (June 1995), Cosmopolitan (September 1995) and Electronic Media (October 2,1995)

Praise for CITIZEN TURNER:

--Citizen Turner is biography at its best, a wildly entertaining story…. While others have written about Turner, the strength of this book…is that it pulls together the complex bundle of tragedy, personal contradictions and outrageous business savvy that mark the man.
Tim Jones
Chicago Tribune (July 10, 1995)

--The Goldbergs have written an exciting account of the fast-lane life of the media mogul. …A dynamic book on all counts.
Publishers Weekly (May 15, 1995)

--Citizen Turner is more up-close and personal than earlier [Turner] biographies….An admirable job of research and organization.
Neil Hickey
Columbia Journalism Review (September/October 1995)

--A captivating account of an American tycoon and his spectacular rise.
Stephen Seplow
The Philadelphia Inquirer (July 30, 1995)

--This is a whizbang of a book. Robert Goldberg and Gerald Jay Goldberg have performed some kind of hat trick here. They have delivered a strong piece of journalism, researching and reporting with great range and completeness on a subject who is powerful, very much alive, and who did not wish the book to be written. They have created a seamless and readable narrative, never an easy task for collaborators, but some kind of miracle, one would think, when the collaborators are father and son. And they have chosen an enormously problematic, not to say obnoxious, subject, and made you rejoice that he is alive….It is, for instance, easily the only serious biography I’ve ever read that made me laugh so hard I had to stop reading to wipe my eyes and blow my nose.
Beth Gutcheon
San Jose Mercury News (July 9, 1995)

--Citizen Turner is the best, most complete of the Turner biographies.
Lawrence Laurent
Television Quarterly (Vol. 28, no. 1)

--Now, armed with the results of more than 200 interviews, the Goldbergs, father-and-son writers who earlier looked at the way television covers the news with Anchors: Brokaw, Jennings, Rather and the Evening News (1990), offer this exhaustively researched, quite personal look at the man who created CNN.
David Rouse
Booklist (July 19, 1995)

--Highly entertaining and will likely appeal to a wide audience. Recommended for all.
Library Journal (July 1995)

--The Goldbergs’ book is a significant achievement.
Verne Gay
Newsday (June 20, 1995)

--This is the fourth biography of the 57-year-old Atlantan who started Cable News Network when he was 42 …. It is the best.
Roy Parker Jr.
Fayetteville Observer Times (July 2, 1995)

--Media mogul Ted Turner is often called “Captain Outrageous” and “The Mouth of the South.” In their expansive and lively new biography, the Goldbergs--father and son--offer a third. Their title recalls “Citizen Kane,” the legendary Orson Welles film….Neither Hearst’s life, nor Kane’s were more exciting or controversial than Turner’s….Citizen Turner, the book and the life, are worthy of movie treatment.
Mike Drew
Milwaukee Journal (July 1, 1995)

--There is enormous drama in this “wild rise” which the Goldbergs capture….In Citizen Turner they have delivered a book that is well written and meticulously researched.
Peter Collier
Washington Post Book World (July 16, 1995)

--Paradox is the essence of the Ted Turner that emerges in Citizen Turner: The Wild Rise of an American Tycoon ….A page turner….highly readable.
David Greising
Business Week (July 17, 1995)

--The Goldbergs manage the complex task of finding the logic to define this life that rambles from fierce tycoon to head-over-heels romantic.…It is a fascinating story.
David Lyman
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (July 22, 1995)

--The life of Ted Turner, “half visionary, half crackpot, and all-American character,” is so colorful that this father-son team must have had trouble holding their book to 525 pages. The Goldbergs do a marvelous job.
Matthew Budman
Across the Board (September 1995)

--This is an extraordinary book about an extraordinary (and mercurial) man….Employing hundreds of interviews of Turner’s friends, relatives, associates and employees, past and present, the Goldbergs weave a riveting tale…Altogether worth reading by anyone who watches the news on TV.
Tryon NC Bulletin (August 4, 1995)

--Citizen Turner is a riveting new biography of sports/media tycoon Ted Turner. Like a tightly woven tapestry, the book presents the many sides of the legendary sailor, entrepreneur, raconteur, and occasional visionary.
Patrick J Toomey Jr.
Palm Beach Post (October 15, 1995)