Ted Turner has passed away at the age of 87. The cause was complications from Lewy body dementia, a brain disease he went public about back in 2018. He passed away at his home near Tallahassee, Florida, surrounded by family. And if you are wondering, yes, he is the founder and correspondent for CNN. Turner was also the Braves announcer. Yes, this is the Ted who was a yacht-racing billionaire who donated to the UN, the most interesting rich person in America during the 1980s and 90s.
But if you are reading this as a dedicated Disney fan, you probably already know why his name rings a bell in a completely different way.
Ted Turner, the billionaire media entrepreneur and philanthropist who launched the 24-hour cable TV news revolution when he founded CNN in 1980, has died. He was 87. https://t.co/CboJPpPBiC pic.twitter.com/DOKk9QM120
— CNN (@CNN) May 6, 2026
The Great Movie Ride. TCM. Robert Osborne. You Know.
In May 2015, Turner Classic Movies, the network Turner launched in 1994 to give classic Hollywood films a permanent, respected home on cable television, partnered with Walt Disney World to sponsor The Great Movie Ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios. The attraction had been running since the park opened in 1989, taking guests through scenes from some of the most iconic films ever made. It was beloved. It was also showing its age by 2015. The TCM partnership changed that. The ride got new digital movie posters. It got fresh TCM branding on the marquee and facade. It got a photo opportunity with a handprint outside. And most importantly, it got Robert Osborne.
Osborne was the face of Turner Classic Movies for decades. He knew more about classic Hollywood than almost anyone alive, and he had a way of talking about old films that made you feel like you were being let in on something wonderful rather than being lectured at. Disney brought him in to record a completely new pre-show video and a new Finale Montage that bookended the entire attraction experience. If you rode The Great Movie Ride between 2015 and 2017, you saw his face and heard his voice, and it made the whole thing feel more serious and more special than it had in years.
The attraction's own team described those changes as among the biggest the ride had seen in its 26-year run at that point.
It Didn't Last Long, But People Remember
The TCM sponsorship ran through 2017. That same year, The Great Movie Ride closed permanently. Disney was clearing the space for Mickey and Minnie's Runaway Railway, which opened in 2020. The Great Movie Ride is gone. The TCM version of it is gone. Robert Osborne passed away in March 2017, just months before the attraction closed. And now Ted Turner is gone, too.
For a certain group of Disney Parks fans, the TCM era of The Great Movie Ride sits in a very specific category of things they wish they had appreciated more in the moment. It was a version of an already-loved attraction that briefly became something even better, and then disappeared before most people understood it was ending.
The Rest of the Ted Turner Story
Turner took over his father's billboard company in 1970 and transformed it into a media empire that reshaped American life. He launched TBS, one of the first cable superstations distributed by satellite. In 1980, he created CNN, pioneering the concept of 24-hour news, which some view as his greatest accomplishment and others as a notable drawback. He introduced TNT in 1988 and purchased the Atlanta Braves in 1976, celebrating their World Series win in 1995.
Additionally, he won the America's Cup in 1977 as the skipper of the yacht Courageous. In 1988, he acquired a wrestling promotion and competed with WWE for a decade. In 1997, he pledged one billion dollars to the United Nations and now owns more land in the United States than nearly any other private individual.
He is survived by five children, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
What This Means for the Disney Community
It means one of the quiet connective threads between classic Hollywood, Turner Classic Movies, and Walt Disney World has come to an end. The Great Movie Ride closed. Robert Osborne is no longer with us. And now the man whose network made that partnership possible is gone too.
If you experienced it during the TCM years, you witnessed a unique collaboration between two remarkable institutions inside a dark, air-conditioned building at Hollywood Studios. This was a significant moment. Turner dedicated decades to advocating for the value of old movies. He insisted they deserved to be seen, remembered, and taken seriously. Similarly, Walt Disney World has always recognized the importance of Hollywood's history at its best. For two years, these two perspectives shared a queue line, and that is something worth remembering—both then and now.
