Former Bears center-linebacker Clyde "Bulldog" Turner, a superstar before superstars were invented, died Friday at his home in Gatesville, Texas. He was 79.

One of the great two-way players in pro football history, Turner and quarterback Sid Luckman anchored the Monsters of the Midway of the 1940s, who won four NFL championships starting with the famous 73-0 victory over the Washington Redskins in 1940. Luckman died in July.

"Bulldog and Luckman were quite a combination. I don't know who did their job better," said teammate Ed Sprinkle.

Turner's daughter, Pat, said her father suffered from emphysema and was diagnosed with lung cancer in March.

"Only a couple of days ago, he was sitting up and laughing," Pat Turner said. "He always kept that sense of humor."

At 6 feet 2 inches and 240 pounds, Turner was unusually big for his era and unusually fast for any era. He led the league in interceptions with eight in 1942 and intercepted four passes in five title games, including one for a 24-yard touchdown in the 73-0 victory over the Redskins. He said his favorite play was a 96-yard interception return for a touchdown against fellow Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh in 1947.

"He backed up the line behind me on the right side, and not too many plays went around us," Sprinkle said.

On offense, Turner was even better.

"He just controlled the middle of the line of scrimmage," said Jim Parmer, a former Bears scout who played against Turner. "Easily the best center to come along for years and years."

Recognized as one of the smartest players in the game, Turner knew every assignment for every player. In 1944, when several Bears were ejected for fighting, Turner played halfback. The only time he carried the ball, he scored on a 48-yard run.

"Who knows what kind of player he would have been if he ever got to rest during a game," former Bears teammate and Hall of Famer George Musso once said.

"He didn't feel he had a peer on the football field," Sprinkle said.

Turner played from 1940-52, and his number, 66, was retired. He was a Bears assistant coach from 1952-56. In 1962, he was head coach of the New York Titans (Jets) in the American Football League.

"People ask me if I have any Super Bowl rings," Turner once said. "I say, `No, but I have four championship rings. It's the same game.' "

In a 1987 interview, Turner said he made $2,000 a season as a rookie and got up to $14,000 for two years after the postwar All-America Conference escalated salaries. In the end, he was living on his NFL pension of about $1,100 a month.

Inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1966, Turner was almost overlooked by the NFL after playing at tiny Hardin-Simmons College in Abilene, Texas, the same school that later produced Sprinkle.

Scouting in 1940 concentrated on major-college athletes and players featured in football magazines. When Turner was a junior, a Hardin-Simmons fan tipped Bears scout Frank Korch, but Turner wasn't a secret for long. He soon became the center of some recruiting chicanery.

The Detroit Lions thought they could sign Turner without drafting him. They treated him to dental work and gave him $100 to resist any other offers. When Turner returned a questionnaire to the Bears noting, "I do not wish to play professional football," owner-coach George Halas smelled something fishy. Uninterested players simply didn't return questionnaires. Taking no chances, Halas made Turner his No. 1 draft choice, and the Lions were fined $5,000 for tampering.

As a rookie, Turner found himself in the 73-0 game that would make the Bears and Halas legends. Turner said so many balls were lost to the fans on extra-point kicks that Halas ordered him to make a bad snap. They were down to practice balls, but Turner refused.

"I told Halas I wasn't going to make a bad snap, not in a championship game. I never made a bad snap in my life," Turner said.

Halas then convinced the holder to drop the ball, but in the paper the next day, the botch was blamed on Turner.

Besides daughter Pat, who lived with him, Turner leaves another daughter, Sandra Shaffer, a sister, Ilene Hairstone, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. His wife, Gladys, died in 1988. Services are Monday in Gatesville.

Clyde D Turner