Child support battle puts Kerkorian in spotlight

Gary Gentile

Monday, Feb. 18, 2002 | 9:47 a.m.

LOS ANGELES -- As an amateur boxer in the late 1930s, he was known as "Rifle Right" Kerkorian, but apparently lacked the frame or the killer instinct to turn pro.

As a financier, he has bought and sold fabled movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer several times, built the MGM MIRAGE casino and hotel empire in Las Vegas and made millions as a major investor in Chrysler Corp.

Now, at 84, billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian is engaged in quite a different fight. His ex-wife is asking a court to award her $320,000 a month to raise her daughter in the style befitting the offspring of one of the world's richest men.

Despite being a major player in the glamour of Hollywood and the glitz of Las Vegas, Kerkorian has remained a very private man who now finds himself at the center of a very public fight. He shuns publicity and will probably never pen a tell-all memoir.

The court battle over child support payments to 3-year-old Kira Kerkorian comes at a time when Kirk Kerkorian is trying to sell his 80 percent stake in the MGM studio, although analysts say his troubles are not likely to affect that deal or the running of his other businesses.

"I seriously doubt he would ever let personal issues cloud management judgment," said David Miller, an analyst at Sanders Morris Harris. "This guy's a very savvy operator as are the folks at MGM."

Kerkorian declined to be interviewed for this article. People close to him also declined to talk, citing his desire for privacy.

The court documents in the case of Kerkorian vs. Kerkorian contain conflicting portraits of the billionaire.

In papers filed by former tennis pro Lisa Bonder Kerkorian, his ex-wife, Kerkorian is described as an extravagantly rich man who routinely walks around with $5,000 to $10,000 in cash in his pocket. He has his thick hair trimmed every 10 days at a cost of $150 per haircut.

He became a father for the third time at 82, and agreed to marry Bonder Kerkorian for 30 days so the child would not be illegitimate, court papers allege. Then he balked at giving his ex-wife and daughter enough money to pay for security, a house in Beverly Hills, private schooling and vacations in Hawaii and France, Bonder Kerkorian claims.

In his court papers, Kerkorian paints Bonder Kerkorian as a disturbed person who lied about his paternity and threatened to make her case public if Kerkorian didn't meet her escalating demands for money.

Kerkorian has said DNA tests show he is not Kira's father, though he has pledged to support her. Attorneys representing Bonder Kerkorian argue that her ex-husband has affirmed his paternity in several sworn documents.

In a scene out of a bad horror flick, Kerkorian claims that Bonder Kerkorian, filled with rage last Christmas, flung a plastic Mickey Mouse telephone he bought Kira over the fence of Kerkorian's Beverly Hills home, smashing it to pieces. She then allegedly said that unless Kerkorian spoke to her, she would do the same with the live rabbit Kerkorian gave his daughter.

These are the kind of he said/she said details that Kerkorian is trying to squelch in court, citing six confidentiality agreements Bonder Kerkorian signed over the years as a condition for receiving nearly $10 million in payments and forgiven debts.

"He's a private man," said Terry Christensen, Kerkorian's attorney and longtime friend. "He's not reclusive in any way, shape or form. We would like to go back to court and take our best shot at encouraging the judge to have everybody, including us, honor the darn confidentiality provisions."

Kerkorian is no stranger to conflict.

He was born Kerkor Kerkorian in Fresno, Calif., in 1917, one of four children of a fruit grower and a homemaker.

At 16, he dropped out of school in Los Angeles and took up boxing. He was Pacific amateur welterweight champion but was too scrawny to turn pro.

During World War II, he worked as a civilian pilot for the British Royal Air Force, ferrying bombers from Canada to England.

He returned to California in 1945, bought a single-engine plane and started flying charters to Las Vegas. He started an airline and 15 years later, sold it to Studebaker for $1 million.

With the profit, he bought 40 acres on the Las Vegas strip and leased the land to the company that built Caesars Palace in 1966. In 1969, he built the Hotel International (now the Las Vegas Hilton), then the world's biggest hotel, on another piece of land.

The hotel was a hit and in 1969, with a fortune of nearly $200 million, he bought fabled movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In 1981, he bought United Artists and combined the two companies.

After the studio struggled, Kerkorian sold it to Ted Turner in 1986, then bought back the MGM logo and United Artists when Turner couldn't make the payments.

In 1990, Kerkorian sold the studio yet again to Italian financier Giancarlo Parretti. He bought it for a third time in 1996 after French Bank Credit Lyonnais became the reluctant owner when Parretti defaulted on his payments.

Kerkorian is now trying to sell the company for a third time. Company executives said MGM needs to get larger to compete with other entertainment behemoths.

"This is the first management team that has run the company with the shareholder in mind," Miller said.