Currently at the age of 97, Kerkor “Kirk” Kerkorian is an Armenian American business man who amassed a fortune through Las Vegas real estate and movie studios at the board of MGM Resorts International with a net worth of 4.2 billion dollars at the present moment.
He was born on June 6 1917 in Fresno, California as the youngest son of Ahron and Lily who emigrated from Armenia and they had four children in total. The language they spoke at home was Armenian and Kirk remembers that he only learned English once he started going out and communicating with the other children.
His father was illiterate and had a large mustache, so everyone called him Pancho Villa. When the San Joaquin Valley raisin boom happened during World War I he became a paper millionaire but once the recession struck his holdings were liquidated.
From an early age Kerkor was interested in boxing with one of his older brothers as his tutor. Before this he was expelled from Foshay Junior High School for fighting and sent to Jacob Riis School for delinquent boys from where he dropped out in the eighth grade to start a career as a boxer. He went with the name Rifle Right Kerkorian and won the Pacific welterweight amateur championship, but after a while lost interest in the sport.
Once the father lost his fortune the family went south to find cheaper accommodation in the poor section of Los Angeles and they first stayed in Lincoln Heights, moving to the Jefferson Park and other sections once a few months passed when they had no more money. Kirk would help his parents by working as a paperboy, golf caddie, steam cleaner, car fixer or furnace installer and he also worked as a bouncer in a bowling alley. At the age of 17 he joined the Civilian Conservation Corps and cut fire trails in the Sequoia National Park. While working as a furnace installer he met Ted O’Flaherty in 1939 and he was taking flying lessons, so Kerkorian started learning to fly across the Mojave Desert.
The World War II was approaching and he didn’t want to join the infantry so, after gaining his pilot license in exchange for taking care of the cattle of Pancho Barnes, he lied about the education and received the rank of lieutenant, becoming an army flight instructor. Kirk flew across the Atlantic for the Royal Air Force to deliver Canadian bombers to the European bases; earning $1000 dollars for each trip although only one in four trips were successful, so the chance of death was quite high. After the war he started searching for surplus planes that would be later sold at an auction for profit.
With the wages from the war he bought a Cessna airplane for $5000 and worked as a general aviation pilot, making the first visit to Las Vegas in 1944, introducing him to gambling. By 1947 he quit this affair and spent$460,000 to buy the Trans International Airlines, a small charter flying persons from LA to Las Vegas. The airline was under his control until 1968 when he sold it to the Transamerica Corporation for 104 million dollars.
At the beginning of the 1960s Kerkorian began to invest in Las Vegas, buying 80 acres in 1962 that would later be occupied by Caesars Palace, who paid rent to him. The land would eventually be sold for 9 million dollars, although he paid only $960,000 for it. Another 82 acres were bought in 1967 as the setting for the International Hotel, which was the largest in the world at the time with stars like Barbra Streisand and Elvis Presley having shows here. The International Leisure founded by Kerkorian bought Flamingo Hotel as well but after a while both of them were sold to the Hilton Hotels Corporation.
The Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studio was bought in 1969 along with the architect Martin Stern Jr., appointing James Thomas Aubrey Jr. as president, and they opened the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino (known today as the Bally’s) which was the largest hotel in the world, taking its name from the 1932 film Grand Hotel. It had 2084 rooms, a showroom with 1200 seats and other amenities such as a shopping arcade or movie theater. In November 21 1980 disaster struck and the MGM Grand Hotel caught fire, leading to one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the city with 87 persons dead in the fire.
This didn’t keep Kerkorian down, he reopened after only eight months, but in 1986 he sold the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and Reno to Bally Manufacturing. Seven years later he would build a second MGM Grand Hotel which was even larger than the first, with 5000 rooms, eight restaurants, a Grand Garden with 15000 seats and its own theme park as big as the original Disneyland.
He began to interest himself with the automobile industry in 1995 with an attempt to take over the Chrysler Corporation but the owners saw the action as hostile and he renounced the efforts. He began to buy stocks of General Motors in May 2005 and he achieved 9.5%, naming someone in the Board of Directors but the way he saw things, trying to work closely with Nissan/Renault, wasn’t appreciated .
In May 2009 his major ownership of MGM Mirage was lost by Kerkorian, going from 53.8 percent to 39 percent, allowing him to focus more on his private life, marrying his long-time girlfriend Una Davis in 2014. This would be his fourth marriage, with the first one to Hilda Schmidt lasting from 1942 to 1951 and the second one being the longest with Maree Harbour-Hardy lasting from 1954 to 1984. This led to their two daughters Tracy and Linda, giving the name to the personal holding company of Kerkorian, – the Tracinda Corporation.
He founded the Lincy Foundation as well (again named after his daughters) which made important charitable contributions to Armenian causes especially. The third marriage was to the tennis player Lisa Bonder, lasting only one month. He currently resides in Beverly Hills, California and his current net worth is estimated by Forbes at 4.2 billion dollars, descending from $16 billion in 2008 when he was the 41st richest person in the world. He once said “There was a time I was aiming at $100,000. Then I thought I’d have it made if I got to a million dollars. Now it isn’t the money.”
