BEVERLY HILLS - Kirk Kerkorian, a self-made billionaire who became known as one of the most cunning dealmakers of his generation through his buying and selling of some of the largest companies in the airline, hospitality and entertainment industries, died June 15 at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 98.

The death was confirmed by Clark Dumont, a spokesman for MGM Resorts International. Mr. Kerkorian’s investment company, Tracinda, is the casino company’s biggest shareholder.

Tracinda, which was named for his two daughters, once was among the largest single shareholders of automakers Chrysler and General Motors. The cause of death was not disclosed.

Over the years, Mr. Kerkorian’s holdings included the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios and MGM Grand, a publicly traded company that at one time owned nearly half the slot machines, table games and hotel rooms on the Las Vegas Strip.

Only the eccentric billionaire developer Howard Hughes was said to have exceeded Mr. Kerkorian’s influence in shaping the gambling mecca.

Mr. Kerkorian, whose fortune was estimated this month at $4 billion by Forbes magazine, liked to call himself “a small-town boy who got lucky.” But in a career spanning seven decades, he displayed an uncanny ability to anticipate what would invite good luck.

He initially built a modest fortune by buying and selling surplus aircraft after World War II. He then started a charter plane service between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, a desert city that boomed in the post-war years and lured celebrities, businessmen, lovebirds wishing to elope and an occasional mobster.

Mr. Kerkorian later pulled off astonishingly profitable land deals in Las Vegas. In the 1960s, he parlayed a $900,000 investment for a 40-acre property on the Strip into a $5 million windfall six years later when Caesars Palace was built there. Fortune magazine dubbed it “one of the most successful land speculations in Las Vegas’ history.”

Mr. Kerkorian also was credited with fueling the phenomenon of the Las Vegas mega-resort through his construction in the late 1960s and early 1970s of properties such as the International Hotel and the MGM Grand.

In 1993, he christened the 5,000-room MGM Grand Hotel and Theme Park, a Vegas behemoth serviced by its own power plant and equipped with a buffet capable of feeding a military installation.

Mr. Kerkorian cultivated a reputation for extreme secrecy in his business dealings and personal life.

He managed a series of daring, labyrinthine deals that brought him respect and fear in the corporate boardrooms of Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Detroit.

He bought and sold MGM three times over 35 years, selling it for the last time in 2004 to Sony for $5 billion.

Not all his bets paid off. Mr. Kerkorian drew wide attention for unsuccessful hostile takeover attempts at Chrysler, GM and Columbia Pictures and for other failed efforts to buy companies such as 20th Century Fox studios, Walt Disney Productions and Trans World Airlines. (The Washington Post)

Story Date: June 18, 2015