LAS VEGAS -- Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, an eighth-grade dropout who built Las Vegas' biggest hotels, tried to take over Chrysler and bought and sold the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio at a profit three times, has died. He was 98.
He died Monday night in Los Angeles, said Clark Dumont, a spokesman for MGM Resorts International. No cause of death was given.
After making his first fortune ferrying gamblers to Las Vegas with Trans International Airlines, Kerkorian built the 30-story, 1,568-room International Hotel, the world's largest hotel when it opened in the late 1960s. He got Elvis Presley to perform there in 1969 as the rock legend relaunched his live performance career.
When Kerkorian later opened the first MGM Grand in Las Vegas in the 1970s, it was again the world's largest hotel, containing more than 2,000 rooms and a 1,200-seat showroom. Years later, he would build another MGM Grand, this one with more than 5,000 rooms -- again, the world's largest.
Elsewhere, Kerkorian bought and sold the MGM film studio three times, each time realizing a profit on his investment. He also invested heavily in the auto industry and made unsuccessful attempts to take over Chrysler.
"Regardless of what people think, there was no great master plan," Kerkorian once said of his business ventures. "Every year was a big year for me. First I was simply trying to earn enough to get something to eat, then enough to buy a car."
He was born Kerkor Kerkorian in Fresno, Calif., in 1917, one of four children of a poor Armenian fruit grower.
His formal education ended with a few auto-mechanic courses, although he later faked a letter stating he was a high school graduate when he wanted to qualify as a military flight officer.
At 17, Kerkorian pretended to be older so he could join the Civilian Conservation Corps, earning $30 a month in 1934 in Sequoia National Park. He worked six months cutting fire trails in forests before returning to Los Angeles.
Kerkorian also followed his older brother Nishon into amateur boxing, winning most of his 33 bouts. But he lacked the size to turn pro, so he went into business. He earned a pilot license, then enrolled in a California flight school for his commercial license, working as a ranch hand to pay his way.
During World War II, he worked for the RAF Air Transport Command in Canada, flying Mosquito bombers on dangerous delivery runs from Canada to Scotland.
After the war, he refurbished a small twin-engine plane and flew passengers between Southern California and the growing desert gambling mecca of Las Vegas. In 1947, Kerkorian bought a tiny charter line and renamed it Trans International Airlines.
Nearly two decades later, he took the company public, and the stock soared. With cash from his stock and shrewd land deals along the Strip, he built the International Hotel. Kerkorian also bought stock in financially ailing MGM.
By 1970, he had working control of the company and began a more than 30-year run of deals involving the historic studio. In 2004, he agreed to sell the studio and its lucrative library of post-1986 films to Sony Corp., Comcast and other investors for about $3 billion.
In 1985, he sold the first MGM Grand to Bally Corp. for $594 million, while retaining rights to the name.
Around that time, he also unloaded the MGM studio to cable TV mogul Ted Turner for a reported $1.5 billion. Turner sold it back just three months later for $300 million amid financial trouble. Kerkorian later sold the studio for $1.3 billion, then bought it back in 1996 for the same amount.
In Las Vegas, he opened the 5,005-room MGM Grand Hotel and Casino and went on to orchestrate the $6.4 billion merger between MGM Grand and Steve Wynn's Mirage Resorts Inc.
In 2005, the renamed MGM Mirage Inc. completed its $4.8 billion acquisition of Mandalay Resort Group. The combined company's holdings included the Bellagio, MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay Resort, Excalibur and seven nearby hotels.
Kerkorian set his sights on the auto industry in 1995, trying to seize control of Chrysler Corp. in a failed $23 billion hostile bid. It failed, but Kerkorian's Beverly Hills-based Tracinda Corp. became Chrysler's largest shareholder.
Kerkorian made another bid for Chrysler in 2007 when DaimlerChrysler put the struggling division on the market, offering $4.5 billion. But Chrysler sold to a private-equity firm for $7.4 billion.
He also gave back, forming The Lincy Foundation at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 1989 to support Armenian causes. After shutting down in 2011, his assets went to The Dream Fund at the University of California, Los Angeles, which supports research and charitable projects.
Kerkorian married three times. He and his second wife had two daughters, Tracy and Linda.
Information for this article was contributed by Sally Ho and Steve Rothwell of The Associated Press and by Kathryn Harris, Laurence Arnold and Beth Jinks of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 06/17/2015