Three times one man built the largest hotel in the world. First it was the 1,512-room International Hotel on Paradise Road in Las Vegas in 1969. This is now the Las Vegas Hilton. Next it was the 2,084-room MGM Grand on Flamingo Road at the Las Vegas Strip in 1973. This is now Bally’s, which is also part of the Hilton Casino Group – also known as Park Place Casinos. Then in 1993 it was the second Las Vegas MGM Grand Hotel and casino – with theme park. This facility at Tropicana and the Strip, with 5,009 rooms, was the first billion-dollar casino project in Las Vegas. These projects alone would merit the mention of that man – Kirk Kerkorian – in any encyclopedia of gambling or gamblers, but his story is more interesting than simply being a builder. Parts of his story make him sound like Howard Hughes, part like Steve Wynn, but he was really neither. He is unique in the annals of casino personalities.
Kirk Kerkorian was born in Fresno, California, on 6 June 1917. His family moved to Los Angeles, where he had to contribute to their finances by selling newspapers at the age of nine and performing whatever other work he could find. He had spoken only the Armenian language of his forefathers until he reached the streets of Los Angeles. Los Angeles taught him that life was to be a struggle, and he willing jumped into the flow of the activity. He drove trucks to carry produce from the San Joaquin Valley, he worked with logging operations in Sequoia National Park, and he was an amateur boxer who won twenty-nine of his thirty-three fights.
In 1939 he fell in love with flying, and within two years he had a commercial pilot’s license. He soon became a flight instructor, and then at the first chance he joined the British Royal Air Force. He ferried bombers from Canada to England in one very dangerous mission after another. In one flight he set a speed record for his aircraft. After the war, his interest remained in the air. In 1945 he visited Las Vegas, bought a single-engine Cessna, and went into the charter business. He would fly into Las Vegas almost daily. In 1947 he purchased the Los Angeles Air Service. Soon he went into the business of refurbishing planes and reselling them. He renamed his company Trans International Airlines and went into the passenger service business in 1959. His business continued to expand, and he would spend much of his free time in Las Vegas at the casinos.
Kerkorian always kept his eyes open for deals. In 1962 he was able to purchase the eighty acres across from the Flamingo on the Las Vegas Strip. By consolidating other pieces of land, he was able to create the parcel of property that Jay Sarno purchased in order to build Caesars Palace. Kerkorian also bought eighty-two acres of land on Paradise Road in 1967. The same year he was able to purchase the Flamingo Hotel for $12.5 million. In 1968 he sold Trans International Airlines for $104 million. He had the resources for his first major project, the International. He invested $16.6 million of his own money in the $80 million facility. He took the properties public in 1969 when the International opened, featuring performers such as Barbra Streisand, Ike and Tina Turner, and Elvis Presley. Yet the Securities and Exchange Commission did not allow him to sell sufficient shares of stock to pay off debts on this and other projects in which he was involved. He felt that he had to sell the Flamingo and International in order to satisfy his business obligations. Hilton took over the two hotel casinos in 1970 and 1971, but Kerkorian was not out of town for long.
He started out by buying a controlling interest in Western Airlines, and he began buying stock in a failing movie company called MGM Grand. He pushed the company toward diversifying into resort hotels. Their first project was the MGM Grand Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, named after the 1932 film Grand Hotel. The hotel opened on 5 July 1973, with a 1,200-seat showroom, a shopping arcade, a movie theater featuring classic MGM films, and a jai alai fronton. In 1976, Kerkorian sold a large block of Western Airlines stock and began a new hotel-casino in Reno. In 1978 the $131 million MGM Grand–Reno opened with the largest casino floor in the world and a 2,000-room tower – making it Reno’s largest hotel.
Disaster struck the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on 20 November 1980. A fire that started in an electrical panel in a kitchen quickly shot through the casino area, killing a score of players and employees. When the fire reached the hotel lobby area it was knocked down by the sprinkler system. A massive smoke cloud was able to rise up stairwell and elevator shafts, however, before it was trapped on the upper floors. There the smoke penetrated guest rooms, killing dozens more. In all, eighty-seven persons perished. Although the tragedy was devastating, Kerkorian quickly decided he would rebuild. By the end of 1981, the MGM was operating at full force. In 1986, however, Kerkorian walked away from his two properties, the Las Vegas MGM and the Reno MGM, selling them to Bally’s for $594 million. Subsequently Bally’s Reno was sold to Hilton, and in turn Hilton bought all of Bally’s, so both properties – like the International before – have become part of Park Place Gaming.
Kirk Kerkorian could not stay away from Las Vegas gambling for long. Once again, he began to plan. One plan to take control of Chrysler Corporation fell short of its goal, although Kerkorian became the largest stockholder in the automotive giant. His other plan led to the creation of the largest hotel and casino floor (at the time) in the world. His 5,009-room colossus, also called MGM Grand (he had held on to the right to the name), featured a 330-acre theme park, a health club, eight restaurants, and a 15,000-seat arena where boxer Mike Tyson has performed on many occasions (some notable, some infamous). Barbra Streisand came out of a twenty-year moratorium on personal concerts to perform there as well for the grand opening in 1993.
When Kerkorian opened the International, he included a youth hostel in the facility. Later the Hilton had a youth recreation area in the facility. His 1993 MGM Grand was heralded as a casino for families with children. It had a Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz theme with an Emerald City and a Yellow Brick Road. The word went out that Las Vegas was a place to bring children. Within a very short time, Kerkorian and the MGM management realized that children want two things from their parents—time and money. Both ways the casino loses. Kerkorian has backed off the “family” theme, and so has Las Vegas. The theme park at the MGM Grand has been consistently downsized, and plans have been made for expanding convention space and also for developing more rooms for prosperous gambling patrons. Kerkorian, in the meantime, keeps moving forward, always seeking new business deals. In 2000 he failed in an effort to take over Chrysler Motors, but he did succeed in a takeover of Steve Wynn’s Mirage Resorts.
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