Kirk Kerkorian was born on June 6, 1917, in Fresno, California. Instead of finishing high school, he chose to drop out in order to help his Armenian family. Eventually, he followed his brother’s footsteps and became a Pacific amateur welterweight boxing champion.
In 1939, he was hired to install wall furnaces for 45₵ an hour. Soon after, he developed an interest for aviation. Without having the means to pay for flight lessons, Kirk Kerkorian went to the Happy Bottom Ranch in the Mojave Desert to clean barns and milk cows in exchange for his lessons. After receiving his commercial pilot’s license six months later, Kirk Kerkorian went to Montreal, Canada to apply for the Royal Air Force. He was then hired to do the dangerous task of delivering Canadian-built bombers to Scotland. For the span of one and a half years, he successfully delivered 33 planes and traveled to four continents.
By integrating the Bellagio and Mirage properties in 1999, Kirk Kerkorian brought to life three of the most profitable gambling resorts in Las Vegas. Currently, he remains as the largest shareholder of the Los Angeles based investment company, Chrysler. He is also one of the major stockholders at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation.
In addition to being the richest Armenian in the world, Kirk Kerkorian is also notable for his feats in philanthropy. His charitable foundation, the Lincy foundation, was named after his daughters Linda and Tracy. So far, the organization has extended its donations to cultural center renovations, highway reconstructions, city beautification in Armenia, as well as to Armenian Churches and to the United Armenian Fund. For the past few years, the Lincy Foundation has granted a total of $165 million worth of donations to the Armenian government. The donations were used to help overcome the damage that was brought about by the earthquake in Spitak.
