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He might have boxed himself into addled obscurity. Kerkorian became the Pacific amateur welterweight champion and wanted to box professionally. By junior high school, he had been transferred to a disciplinary campus where order was maintained with a metal-studded leather belt. Big brother Nish, a pro boxer, coached him. The Kerkorians moved often, and Kirk was always the new kid in school, obliged to prove himself. You get a drive that’s a little different, maybe a little stronger, than somebody who inherited.” “In my case it was at 9 years old when I started bringing income into the family. “When you’re a self-made man you start very early in life,” he says. “We didn’t learn the English language until we hit the streets.” “Our first language, although we were born here, was Armenian,” Kerkorian recalls. When the recession of 1921-22 wiped out the family, the Kerkorians moved to Los Angeles. Kerkor Kerkorian was born in Fresno, Calif., on June 6, 1917, youngest of Ahron and Lily Kerkorian’s four children. He still looks capable of demonstrating why he was called “Rifle Right Kerkorian” in the boxing ring. He may be amused, bored, or about to knock his interviewer through the second-story window of his Beverly Hills, Calif., office. The tanned, deeply lined poker face reveals nothing. His dark, motionless eyes are set below thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows. I’m at a restaurant three or four nights a week, here or in Las Vegas.” I go to an occasional party, but just because I don’t go to a lot of events, and I’m not out in public all the time doesn’t mean I’m anti-social or a recluse. “I have 30- or 40-year friendships that I prefer to meeting new people. “I’m far from being reclusive,” declares Kerkorian. Those who know him describe him not as Hughesian hermit, but a gentle, gracious, normal guy.

Kerkorian rarely attends board meetings and never gives speeches.

Today, Kerkorian is the 41st richest man in the country, worth about $5.7 billion. In Las Vegas, he built three hotels that were the largest in the world in their time, and proved that, contrary to the wisdom of the day, courting the convention and family travel markets could be profitable. Kirk Kerkorian, father of the Las Vegas megaresort, dropped out of school in the eighth grade to become a professional boxer, flew suicide missions for the Royal Air Force, made a small fortune in surplus military airplanes, and a larger one in the airline business.

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