Kerkorian rarely took a title other than president and sole shareholder of Tracinda Corp., the Las Vegas-based company he formed to make investments. His Lincy Foundation, created in 1989 in response to a devastating earthquake the previous year that killed about 25,000 people in Armenia, his family’s ancestral homeland, donated about $180 million to the country but he declined offers to have landmarks named in his honor.

Legal Actions

He was not easily crossed. He fought in court when an ex- wife, Lisa Bonder, in 2002 sought $320,000 a month in alimony and child support.

Eight years later Kerkorian agreed to pay about $10 million plus $100,000 a month in child support even though Bonder admitted that Kerkorian wasn’t the biological father, according to the Associated Press.

Kerkorian sued DaimlerChrysler AG in 2000, saying he’d been duped. As Chrysler Corp.’s largest shareholder, with a stake of almost 14 percent, he had initially supported the carmaker’s 1998 merger with Germany’s Daimler-Benz AG. Later he said he’d been fooled by representations that the deal was “a merger of equals.” Seeking as much as $3 billion in damages, he lost a federal trial verdict in 2005. His appeal of the ruling was unsuccessful.

In 2007 Kerkorian offered $4.5 billion in cash to buy the money-losing U.S. auto maker from its parent company and was outbid by Cerberus Capital Management LP.

Immigrant Farmers

Kerkor Kerkorian was born on June 6, 1917, in Fresno, California. His parents, Ahron and Lily Kerkorian, were Armenian immigrant farmers who lost their land in the 1920s. The family moved to Los Angeles, where the elder Kerkorian operated fruit stands, never regaining economic security.

“We moved at least 20 times when I was a kid,” Kerkorian told Fortune magazine in 1969.

More about his childhood emerged in “Kerkorian: An American Success Story,” a 1974 biography by Dial Torgerson. After punching the son of a schoolteacher, Kerkorian was sent to a local reform school. 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.