Kirk Kerkorian, a billionaire investor and real estate developer who joined Hollywood history by owning MGM three different times, has died. He was 98.
Anthony Mandekic, the president and CEO of his Tracinda Corp, told Variety that Kerkorian died at his Beverly Hills home Monday night. MGM Resorts also confirmed the news to The Wrap.
Kerkorian earned his money through aircraft and real estate and brought his shrewd business sense to Hollywood first in 1969 when he bought Metro Goldwyn Mayer, effectively putting the nail in the coffin of the “studio system.” He was seen as an outsider immediately, as he didn’t know many people in the movie business.
In 1981, he bought United Artists, bringing MGM and UA together. Then, he sold the two companies to Ted Turner for $1.5 billion in 1986. Turner only wanted them for the film libraries, which he began to air on television. Just five months after that deal, Kerkorian bought the MGM name, UA and the MGM Culver City lot for $470 million. He then sold off the lot to Lorimar-Telepictures, which is now owned by Warner Bros.
In 1990, Kerkorian sold the remaining assets to Pathe Communications for $1.36 billion, but kept the MGM name so he could use it for his hotels and ventures in Las Vegas. After Giancarlo Parretti, the owner of Pathe, defaulted on his loans, MGM/UA went to a French bank, which sold it back Kerkorian in 1996.
Kerkorian kept MGM/UA until 2005, when Sony and other investors bought the company. But he made sure he kept a 55-percent interest in the MGM Grand.
Kerkorian, who served in World War II as a captain for the U.K. RAF Transport Command, was born in Fresno, California. He was married three times and had two children with his second wife, Jean Marie Hardy. He was briefly married to tennis player Lisa Bonder in 1999.
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