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Magnates Kirk Kerkorian
Kirk Kerkorian (b. June 6, 1917) is a Nevada billionaire
and president/CEO of Tracinda Corporation, his private
asset company based in Beverly Hills, California. Kerkorian
is known as one of the important figures in shaping
the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, and the "father
of the mega-resort".
Early life
Kerkor "Kirk" Kerkorian was
born in 1917 in Fresno, California, to Armenian immigrant
parents. The young Kerkorian, under the protection of
his older brother, became a fairly skilled amateur boxer,
but in 1939 shifted his focus to learn how to fly airplanes.
During World War II, Kerkorian fly as a pilot in the
British Royal Air Force.
Kerkorian and Las Vegas
Kerkorian made his first trip to Las
Vegas in 1945 as a Cessna pilot. After spending much
time in Las Vegas in the 1940s and 1950s, Kerkorian
quit gambling and founded a startup airline.
In 1962, Kerkorian buy 80 ac (32.3
ha) across The Strip from the Flamingo for $960,000.
This purchase led to the building of Caesars Palace,
which borrowed the land from Kerkorian; the rent and
eventual sale of the land to Caesars in 1968 made Kerkorian
$9 million.
In 1967, he bought 82 ac (33 ha) of
land on Paradise Road in Las Vegas for $5 million and
built the International Hotel, which on the time was
the largest hotel in the world; Kerkorian's International
Leisure also bought the Flamingo Hotel.
In 1973, having purchased MGM, the
famous movie studio, Kerkorian and MGM opened the original
MGM Grand Hotel, which was the largest hotel in the
world at the time it was completed.
On November 21, 1980, the original
MGM Grand burned in a fire that was the bad disaster
in Las Vegas history. The Las Vegas Fire Department
reported 84 death in the fire. There were 87 death total,
including three which occurred later as a result of
injuries sustained in the fire. Marvelously, the MGM
Grand reopened after only 8 months.
In 1986, Kerkorian sold the MGM Grand
hotels in Las Vegas with Reno for $594 million to Bally.
Spun off from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, MGM Mirage owns and
operates many properties, as well as the Bellagio, the
current MGM Grand resort complex, The Mirage, Treasure
Island, the New York-New York, and the Boardwalk in
Las Vegas, as well as the Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi,
Mississippi.
Kerkorian and MGM
In 1969, Kerkorian appointed James
T. Aubrey, Jr. MGM's president. He downsized the struggling
MGM and sold off very big amounts of historical memorabilia,
including Dorothy's ruby slippers (from The Wizard of
Oz), and several acres of MGM's backlots (which were
razed to build houses). Kerkorian sold MGM's distribution
system in 1973, and little by little distanced himself
from the daily process of the studio. In 1979, Kerkorian
issued a statement claiming that MGM was now primarily
a hotel company; however, he also managed to enlarge
the overall film library and production system with
the purchase of United Artists in 1981. In 1986 he sold
the studios to Ted Turner.
Turner kept ownership of the joint
MGM/UA for exactly 74 days. Both studios had massive
debts and Turner simply could not afford to keep them
under those circumstances; to recoup his investment,
he sold all of United Artists and the MGM trademark
back to Kerkorian. The studio lot was sold to Lorimar,
which was later acquired by Warner Bros.; in 1990, the
lot was sold to Columbia Pictures in trade for the half
of Warner's lot they'd borrowed since the 1970s. Also
in 1990, the MGM studio was purchased by Italian financier
Giancarlo Parretti, but Parretti defaulted on the loan
he'd used to buy the studio and sold the studio back
to Kerkorian in 1996.
Family
Kerkorian wedded professional tennis
player Lisa Bonder. He was involved in a breach of privacy
suit file against him by Steve Bing. Kerkorian claim
Bing was the father of Lisa Bonder's daughter.
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