The legendary money manager John Marks Templeton started early. At age 4, young Templeton was making money at a vegetable business in his native Winchester, Tenn.

Templeton, who recently died at the age of 95, established a pattern of success at a very early age thanks to two remarkable parents. Harvey, his father, was a small-town lawyer who once owned a half dozen farms. His mother, Vella Handly Templeton, was a brilliant woman who studied Latin,         Greek and mathematics. Both parents encouraged self-reliance, telling their children they could accomplish anything.
Both parents wanted young John and his brother Harvey to think independently and follow their curiosity to wherever it took them. And they did. Young Templeton experimented with electricity and rebuilt an old car. Almost every pursuit was open to the brothers. That is, as long as they diligently studied and prepared for each venture.

Templeton was also developing a counterintuitive streak, and this independent-minded, high-energy curiosity would serve him well when he became a money manager.

Templeton wasn't born to wealth. Though his parents were comfortable in the 1920s, by 1930 they had been hurt by the Great Depression, and his higher education was in jeopardy.

"At the beginning of sophomore year [1931] my father told me with regret that he could not contribute even one dollar to my education. At first this seemed like a tragedy, but now, looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened," Templeton told his great-niece in the book Investing the Templeton Way.

He sailed through Yale University on scholarships and various part-time jobs and by making money from small-stakes poker. It was a game that Templeton mastered but would never play again after Yale.

Later Templeton was a Rhodes scholar, studying in England. Then he toured the world, trying to learn everything about foreign cultures. Templeton was preparing to become an economic adviser. So he studied law because he believed that knowing law and different cultures would prepare him for his life's work.

His lineage and his record of academic accomplishment certainly gave young Templeton a good start on his march toward a fabulous career in money management. However, there was something else, something that was a unique part of his life and success: Templeton's spirituality.

His mother was a Presbyterian church elder. But she was also a follower of the early 20th century Unity School of Christianity. This was a kind of offshoot of Christian Science and the transcendentalism of Ralph Waldo Emerson, a philosopher Templeton revered.

Here would be another key element in Templeton's wildly successful career. His spirituality was an essential part of everything he did. His religion viewed material prosperity as "a good thing ... it should flow naturally from intelligent planning and preparing spiritually and intellectually for success," wrote William Proctor in The Templeton Touch (Templeton's authorized biography).

The Unity movement said a major part of happiness was "thought control." Here, one focuses on things that are positive and productive. "Physical healing, wealth, inner peace-almost anything is possible if your mental processes are in tune with the great divine principles of the universe," Templeton told Proctor. Templeton was different in everything he did, even his religion.

Although a devout Presbyterian, he wanted to learn about all religions. "Why shouldn't I go to Hindu services? Why shouldn't I go to Muslim services?" he asked. "If you're not egotistical, you will welcome the opportunity to learn more."

Armed with a superb education and a strong mind nurtured by enlightened parents, Templeton was ready for more triumphs. But it would be a success that flouted investment conventions. Templeton's bargain philosophy argued that, if one buys a good company cheap enough, the cards would be stacked in one's favor. And there were conditions in which one could buy even so-so companies and do well.

The late 1930s, when Templeton was in his late 20s, was such a time. The stock market and the economy, after a decade of various failed inflationary recovery programs tried by the Hoover and Roosevelt administrations, were in the doldrums. Nazism was triumphant in Europe as World War II began. The U.S. initially watched from the sidelines as the Allies went down one by one until only Britain was barely standing. Templeton made several brilliant bets that were the foundation of his fortunes.

They were all based on his later stated philosophy: "The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy." Also, Templeton stressed that outstanding returns require independent thinking: "It is impossible to produce a superior return unless you do something different from the majority."  
With noninterventionist, or what some would call isolationist, sentiment running strong in the United States in the late 1930s, Templeton took a different view: He concluded that the United States would be inevitably drawn into the war. Believing that the war would revive the stock market, he also predicted that the biggest winners would be the weakest companies that had been the biggest losers in the 1930s. He bet that they would gain the most statistically, but they would also have something else going for them that would greatly improve their after-tax returns.

Since they had been the biggest losers in the 1930s, Templeton reasoned, they would escape the excess profits taxes that would surely come with the war! Templeton understood how taxes, both explicit and implicit, affected performance.

Templeton hit the mark on all these bets. In the midst of the war, he started a money management firm with a few thousand dollars of borrowed money. He borrowed $10,400 and had his broker buy every stock that was below $1.

Four years later he had made some $40,000 on his daring moves. Templeton sold and later admitted he probably sold too soon. His bargain philosophy called for generally selling after four years and finding better bargains. Four years after he found these bargains, he believed, they would no longer be so cheap.

Templeton had done something dramatically different and won. Still, his against-the-grain approach was often met with skepticism. Templeton, who began trolling abroad for more bargains after World War II, started his Templeton Growth Fund in 1954. He became optimistic about Japanese stocks back when many Americans made fun of the Japanese and their products. Later on, as Americans would discover these Japanese stocks, Templeton would move on to other more profitable places. But Templeton also knew how to avoid disaster.

In 2000, he warned that tech stocks were overpriced. A new generation of mesmerized investors-many of whom had never heard of the Nifty Fifty or the investment disasters of the 1960s and 1970s-frankly thought that Templeton's best years were past.

Their portfolios were hammered. They forgot the words of the great sage: "The time of maximum optimism is the best time to sell."

And it is also the best time to short. Templeton invested $185 million, making a huge short bet on Nasdaq stocks early in 2000. He made a $90 million profit on that investment, according to his grandniece, Lauren Templeton, a hedge fund manager.

Once again, Templeton was proved right. But he had been right again and again. His close to 40 years of running the Templeton Growth Fund could be likened to the dynasties of the New York Yankees or the Montreal Canadiens. From 1954 to 1992, the fund delivered a 14.5% annual return. A $10,000 initial investment would have grown to $2 million when Templeton sold to Franklin.

Franklin paid some $900 million, much of which would go to Templeton's various foundations. Templeton would be acclaimed as one of John Train's great "money masters." Train praised him as an incredible bargain hunter. "He insisted on buying only what was being thrown away," Train wrote. Templeton's own brand of bargain hunting should never be thrown away by those seeking outstanding returns.