The Dealmaker Rides Again

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Kerkorian's childhood, rough and rootless, may have instilled in him that lifelong drive to get ahead. Born to Armenian immigrant farmers in Fresno, Calif., he moved at least 20 times as a kid, his parents often struggling with the rent. In junior high, he was expelled for fighting and truancy. After dropping out, he learned to box ("Rifle Right," they called him), and during World War II he shuttled planes across the Atlantic for Britain's Royal Air Force. Back in California, he bought and sold refurbished aircraft and started an air service ferrying gamblers from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. On layovers in Vegas he took an interest in gambling, especially craps, and parlayed the proceeds from various ventures into real estate and casinos, seeing promise in the town "when it was just dirt," says a colleague. By the early '70s, well into his second marriage, to a former Vegas show girl, he was buying movie studios, investing in gambling businesses and making bids for airlines. Eventually he moved on to Chrysler, though Iacocca once said "he really doesn't have any interest in cars."

For all his headline-grabbing skill as a dealmaker, Kerkorian is often described as a recluse. Vegas real estate tycoon Irwin Molasky, an old friend, says it's more that Kerkorian tends to be quiet and unassuming. He hasn't been entirely able to shield himself from the tabloids, however. In 2002 he was involved in a tawdry paternity case after his third wife, tennis pro Lisa Bonder, to whom he had been married for a month, admitted faking DNA tests to prove he was the father of her child. Still, when he attends boxing matches, Kerkorian sits up in the cheap seats, not at ringside. "He wants to be in the background," says Molasky. For a guy who may be about to rumble with General Motors, that may be his toughest act yet. --With reporting by Laura A. Locke/ San Francisco and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles