At 17, Kerkorian pretended to be older so he could join the Civilian Conservation Corps, earning $30 a month in 1934 in Sequoia National Park, according to Torgerson’s biography. He worked six months cutting fire trails in forests before returning to Los Angeles.
Amateur Boxer
Kerkorian followed his older brother Nishon into amateur boxing, winning most of his 33 bouts. At 22, he was installing furnaces when a colleague introduced him to the thrill of flying airplanes.
He earned a pilot license, then enrolled in a California flight school for his commercial license, working as a ranch hand to pay his way.
One month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Kerkorian married Hilda Schmidt. He turned down a captain’s commission in the U.S. Army Air Force to take a risky but lucrative civilian job delivering planes overseas for Britain’s Royal Air Force.
He saved much of his $1,000-a-trip salary to invest in the postwar boom in aviation. Kerkorian purchased and sold surplus planes after the war, then bought Los Angeles Air Service, an air charter business in 1947.
High Rollers
He flew charter flights to Las Vegas, often for high- rollers or Hollywood celebrities, and spent more time in Nevada following his 1951 divorce.
In 1954, he married Jean Maree Hardy, a dancer from England. The couple had two daughters, Tracy and Linda, before divorcing. Kerkorian coined the “Tracinda” and “Lincy” monikers from his children’s names.
In 1962, Kerkorian bought about 80 acres in Las Vegas that became the site of Caesars Palace in 1966. For his land purchase of $960,000, Kerkorian collected $2 million in annual rent until he sold the property to the hotel’s owners for $5 million in 1968. It was “one of the best” deals he’d ever done, he said in 2011.