LAS VEGAS—Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, an eighth-grade dropout who built Las Vegas’s biggest hotels, tried to take over Chrysler and bought and sold MGM at a profit three times, has died. He was 98.
He died Monday night in Beverly Hills.
The reserved, unpretentious Kerkorian spent much of his life trying to stay out of the spotlight and rarely gave interviews. He called himself a “small-town boy who got lucky.”
He shunned glitzy Hollywood parties and movie premieres in favor of making deals. Rather than arrive at an event by limousine, he often drove himself in a Mercury station wagon.
“He was a very private guy who shunned the limelight, both in a business way and from a charitable standpoint,” said Patty Glaser, his attorney of four decades.
