Kirk Kerkorian
American businessman, investor, and philanthropist (1917–2015)
Kerkor "Kirk" Kerkorian (Armenian: Քըրք Քըրքորեան; June 6, 1917 – June 15, 2015) was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He was the president and CEO of Tracinda Corporation, his private holding company based in Beverly Hills, California. Kerkorian was one of the important figures in the shaping of Las Vegas and, with architect Martin Stern Jr., is described as the "father of the mega-resort". He built the world's largest hotel in Las Vegas three times: the International Hotel (opened in 1969), the original MGM Grand Hotel (1973) and the current MGM Grand (1993). He purchased the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie studio in 1969.
Kerkorian, who was born to Armenian immigrants, provided over $1 billion for charity in Armenia through his Lincy Foundation, which was established in 1989 and particularly focused on helping to rebuild northern Armenia after the 1988 earthquake. Kerkorian also provided money to ensure that a film based on the history of the Armenian genocide would be made. The resulting film, called The Promise, premiered in April 2017 in the United States. In 2000 Time magazine named him the 10th largest donor in the US. Kerkorian was declared an honorary citizen of Armenia. He was bestowed the title of National Hero of Armenia, the highest state award.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q356068. VIAF identifies the subject as 34176064. The Library of Congress control number is no2004104946. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 2015, 1969 and 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kirk Kerkorian” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.