Kirk Kerkorian

American entrepreneur, aviator, philanthropist and billionaire owner of the world's largest hotel, MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada and part owner of Chrysler Corporation. Never having finished high school, he was reviewed in Forbes Magazine as the 31st richest man in America. In 2000 Time magazine named him the 10th largest donor in the US.

Kerkorian was the youngest of four children (two brothers, Nishon and Art, one sister Rose) of illiterate Armenian immigrant Ahron Kerkorian, who owned hundreds of acres of orchards and ranch land in the Fresno area. Kirk described his father as "the toughest man I ever knew" and his mother as "very shy, very sweet." Armenian was spoken in the home and patriarch Father Ahron encouraged strong, if not fierce, family values. The Kerkorian family enjoyed the wealth of Ahron's vast land holdings, but poverty hit in 1923 with a series of bad business transactions. With all of his land sold or foreclosed to pay his debts, the bankrupt Ahron regrouped, putting his sons to work and two years later, established a lucrative business as a fruit vendor in the San Fernando Valley. Young Kirk worked selling newspapers, caddying, picking melons, and hauling rocks at MGM studio- a studio he would come to own.

After dropping out of high school, Kerkorian worked at odd jobs while training for a career in boxing. "Rifle Right Kerkorian" had the early ambition of supporting himself and hopefully, earning enough as a professional boxer to purchase an automobile.

A defining moment came in 1939 when a co-worker who took flying lessons finally persuaded the petrified Kerkorian to join him in the cockpit. After his first experience being airborne, he never looked back. His boxing career ended that day and the following morning he returned to the airfield with his life savings to enroll as a student. Two years later he was a civilian flight instructor.