In the next instant he pitched forward chin-first into a marble countertop. The rock-hard surface caught him like a powerful uppercut. His head snapped back. His legs crumpled. The helpless nurse could only gasp as Kirk’s limp body toppled backward. The back of his head slammed against the marble floor. And everything went still.
Kirk lay sprawled at the nurse’s feet, motionless.
He had regained consciousness before an emergency medical crew arrived. Kirk insisted he was fine, a little bump on the head and his chin hurt but no need for an ambulance. The rescue team persisted. He showed symptoms of a concussion. Kirk finally relented. He was whisked off to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and admitted under an assumed name.
When Ron Falahi came to visit later that day, Kirk was in bed and hooked up to an array of tubes and monitors. He looked tired. And old. It was a shocking change from the vital, physically fit Kirk he saw the night before.
Kirk’s friend Joan Dangerfield had taken up residence on the deep windowsill of his hospital room. She would sleep there for the next three nights.
The patient, accustomed to almost dictatorial control in his business world, demanded to go home within hours of his hospital admission—to no avail. After a couple of days, Kirk greeted visitors and hospital staff with an angry mantra: “Get me outta here . . . get me outta here . . . get me outta here.”
After four days, his medical caretakers reluctantly agreed to discharge Kirk for continued recuperation at home. As a condition, they urged no strenuous physical activities and no climbing stairs. Upon arrival back at the Roxbury residence in an SUV attended by security aides and Joan Dangerfield, Kirk was immediately scooped up into the arms of Falahi, his muscular fitness coach, and then carried to the threshold of his front door.
Kirk entered and immediately marched up the stairs without assistance and without heed to anyone’s concerns. In case anyone doubted, the lion was back in his lair. Kirk had resumed control. In truth, he had simply forgotten the no-stairs admonition.
“I took a pretty good hit,” he would confess later to friends. “When I came home, my short-term memory was gone. I looked at my house and thought, ‘Gee, what a nice house. I wonder who’s letting me stay here.’”2
The traumatic incident was a turning point. Kirk’s life would henceforth be defined as before or after “the fall.”
Kirk’s impatience was notorious long before the fall. He once left Yvette Mimieux stranded in Paris when she was late to board his private jet. On more than one occasion he considered walking away from one of his own “too boring” seniors’ tennis matches—even though he was winning at the time.3
And he abandoned slow-paced golf altogether some forty years earlier. Waiting while others dropped flecks of grass “to see which way the wind was blowing” drove him to distraction. “We’d get on the green and it would take us ten minutes to get off . . . My patience just didn’t let me stay with it.”
Impatience marked his business history as well. When Kirk was buying the Desert Inn and Sands hotels from the Hughes successor firm, Summa Corporation, he grew frustrated by a series of conditions the sellers demanded. Finally, Terry Christensen called the sellers’ lawyers to his office on a Saturday and issued an ultimatum: “Mr. Kerkorian is offering cash ($167 million). His cash comes with no strings, no conditions. He wants those properties with no strings, no conditions. Take it, or leave it. End of negotiations.” The deal closed shortly thereafter.4
Periodically, the steady influx of charity requests coming by mail, phone, and through the front door of Kirk’s Rodeo Drive offices also triggered fits of impatience. He once toyed with making a fake announcement closing the Lincy Foundation just to discourage supplicants. Yet, a complete stranger could catch him in the office and walk out with a check for $10,000 to pay for a loved one’s cancer surgery.5
Several months after the fall, Kirk’s impatience flared again. According to Alex Yemenidjian, Kirk felt his generosity was being taken for granted, that the administration of Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan expected more help than it was getting from the Lincy Foundation. Kerkorian-funded projects during Sargsyan’s first three years in office amounted to substantially less (a total of about $14 million) than the $160 million Lincy poured into earthquake relief during the ten-year term of predecessor Robert Kocharyan.
Without question, Kirk had a more friendly relationship with the previous Armenian head of state. Kocharyan had traveled to Century City in 1998 to help celebrate the Kerkorian-funded one-hundredth airlift of disaster relief. Kirk received an Armenian passport and honorary citizenship. He had been so moved that he overcame his fear of public speaking long enough to take the microphone and declare in the language of his boyhood: “Long live Armenia.”6
Whatever set off Kirk’s precipitous decision—and it could have been a misperception—Yemenidjian knew that his orders were not subject to appeal. “Close the Lincy Foundation,” he demanded. “You have one week. Shut it down.”7
Harut Sassounian, whose United Armenian Fund was building six schools in the earthquake zone, found out his budget was being suspended when Anthony Mandekic summoned him to the Rodeo Drive office. The checks had to stop immediately, said Kirk’s finance chief. There was no explanation—and Harut knew better than to ask why. When Kirk was in a good mood, everyone was in a good mood. When Kirk was in a bad mood, Mandekic routinely alerted everyone to steer clear.8
On Valentine’s Day 2011 Kirk and UCLA chancellor Gene Block formally announced the transfer of about $200 million in Lincy Foundation assets to the UCLA Foundation and a university-administered Dream Fund.
Kirk continued to support a number of Armenian causes, including Harut’s half-finished school construction projects. But the Lincy Foundation, which had dispensed more than $1.1 billion in gifts over the previous twenty-two years, abruptly and without official explanation ceased to exist.
It’s likely that Kirk’s mood at the time was also burdened by news about his sister, Rose. She was sick and dealing with increasing pain. The billionaire brother who had always taken care of his spunky sister was helpless to ease her suffering. And Rose was in no condition to cheer up Kirk, either.
She had always been good at that. Well into her nineties, the former dancer could turn a fancy restaurant into a lounge act by asking one of Kirk’s dinner guests, “Can you touch your nose with your toes?” Rose would push back from the table and demonstrate. She was extraordinarily limber for any age. Next she’d ask, “Can you do the splits?” And she would land a perfect split right there on the restaurant floor.9
The shy Kirk loved it—the audacity of it, the show, the awesome big sister.
After the fall, Kirk’s home needed safety renovations, including an automated stair lift. Kirk was adamantly opposed. Fitness coach Falahi won him over arguing that the lift would help preserve his energy for daily exercises. Kirk was still working out religiously at an exercise bench in his bedroom, using his custom-made pair of seventeen-and-a-half-pound dumbbells.
Long-neglected changes in Kirk’s estate planning also required attention. The man with billions in cash and assets—but also an aversion to considering his mortality—hadn’t updated his will in nearly fifteen years. The potential for probate mayhem loomed.
Like his 1997 will, Kirk’s 2011 version left the bulk of his estate to charity. The old one named the American Red Cross as primary recipient, a tribute to his friend and then-president of the Red Cross Elizabeth Dole. She had long since left that role. The new Kerkorian document left distribution decisions to a trio of advisers—his doctor, lawyer, and accountant.
Another notable difference in the revised will was the creation of a $7 million trust for Kira Rose Kerkorian, the daughter he didn’t father.
Kirk’s emotional ties to Las Vegas remained strong, but his visits had declined sharply after the fall. He caught the Manny Pacquiao welterweight championship fight against Shane Mosley at his beloved MGM Grand Garden in 2011. Kirk’s party of friends inc
luded former sheriff Ralph Lamb, longtime Muhammad Ali business manager Gene Kilroy, and former fiancée Una Davis who came with her college-age son.
Before Pacquiao was declared the winner by unanimous decision, the nearly ninety-four-year-old Kirk turned to the eighty-four-year-old ex-sheriff to say, “Ralph, we must be the only two people here who couldn’t see this fight.”10
Both men suffered deteriorating eyesight. Kirk’s macular degeneration made it difficult to focus on anything in front of him. The condition made him increasingly reluctant to go out in public fearing encounters with old friends and acquaintances that he might not see well enough to recognize. His standard reply to anyone calling out his name was a friendly but safe “Hey, buddy!”
“It was easier to hide, to stay home,” said Una who always remained friendly with Kirk even when their romantic relationship cooled.11
That fear didn’t deter him from another black-tie charity event in Las Vegas later in 2011. Kirk bought a couple of tables. The fund-raiser for Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy would benefit an old friend’s famous son. Manny (now Mike) Agassi’s boy, retired tennis superstar Andre Kirk Agassi, choked up acknowledging Kerkorian’s history of generosity.
If it wasn’t for Kirk “and his kindness to my family, I wouldn’t be standing in front of you today,” Andre told the crowd. “And I mean his kindness long before I ever hit a tennis ball.”
That night Kirk didn’t stop with simply buying tables. He directed accountant Anthony Mandekic, seated at one of those tables, to write a check for $18 million. That donation put Andre’s foundation over the top, completing an endowment that would make it permanently self-sustaining. “We have so much to celebrate,” said the grateful tennis celebrity, his face glistening from tears as he singled out Kirk for thanks. Kirk shifted in his ballroom seat.
A few months later, Kirk sent his private jet to pick up Gene Kilroy and fly him to Santa Barbara. Kilroy needed special cancer treatment. Air transport and medical care were all at Kirk’s expense. In the vernacular of a casino credit manager, “Kirk used to tell me, ‘Gene, you’ll always have a marker with me.’”12
For Kirk’s ninety-fifth birthday in 2012 he got a big surprise. Unfortunately, he didn’t like birthdays or surprises.
On this occasion, companion Joan Dangerfield treated him to a stay in one of the posh bungalows at the Beverly Hills Hotel, one of Kirk’s favorite places—not because it was posh, but because it was walking distance to his hangout at the Polo Lounge. As the couple strolled up a garden path toward their bungalow, Kirk didn’t notice videographers in the bushes. Cameras captured a series of strangers, young women, who approached Kirk pretending to recognize him. One of them gushed, “I know you! You’re Kirk Kerkorian. I love you!”13
Then, from out of nowhere, appeared dancing couples and recorded music playing the 1958 hit “To Know Him Is to Love Him.”
In a lush green clearing among the palms and giant birds of paradise, about thirty professional dancers broke into a Broadway-style routine as Kirk and Joan looked on.
The well-meaning tribute lasted a very long four minutes. Kerkorian seemed mildly amused on camera, but aides called his response an act of politeness. He hated making a scene. He hated having his privacy violated. And things went from uncomfortable to worse. A video recording of Kirk and the flash mob would turn up on the Internet, becoming an instant hit on YouTube.
By summer’s end, Kirk had ordered Falahi to help his security team remove Joan’s personal belongings from his Roxbury residence.14 He almost immediately announced his engagement to Lu Beard, the widow of an Oklahoma oilman. Kirk and his new fiancée had been friends since her prior marriage to the late actor Dale Robertson decades earlier.
But summer also brought Rose’s death. She was 102. Kirk was bereft. He had lost other siblings. Art, the eldest, had a drinking problem that drove them apart. He died nearly forty years earlier. Nish was close to Kirk until his death twenty years earlier. He and Rose went together to Nish’s funeral in 1992. After Kirk’s fall, Rose gently chided him for giving her a scare, then turned serious. “Brother, don’t you dare leave me,” she said. He told her not to worry: “We’ll just go together.”15
When Rose’s memorial was scheduled, Kirk advised his family he was unable to attend. “I’m too sad,” he said.16
Kirk’s ongoing legal battles with ex-companion Lisa Bonder flared up again a few months later, this time over new issues. As his ninety-sixth birthday approached in 2013, she filed conservatorship papers in a Los Angeles Court alleging that Kirk was in declining health and that his Tracinda Corp. managers were “holding him captive.” She asked to be named joint conservator with her twenty-four-year-old son, Taylor Kreiss, to help protect Kirk and his assets.
Bonder was “that woman” throughout Kirk’s inner circle, widely regarded by Kirk loyalists as a villain. She had to be the last person Kirk wanted making any decisions about his life or estate. In court filings, his attorneys accused her of scheming to increase Kira’s child support payments to $500,000 a month.17
A Page Six item in the New York Post further disputed Bonder’s conservatorship claims. Crediting Kerkorian inside sources, the newspaper said Kirk was quite “perky for his age” and had recently met with his doctor over drinks at the Polo Lounge. “Yes, he sees his doctor at the Polo Lounge,” said the story, quoting an unnamed insider.18
Bonder dropped her conservatorship bid two months after it was filed. Yet, its impact lingered like an adrenaline rush after a bad scare. Kirk mulled his future. If someone he so distrusted could actually end up with control over any aspect of Kirk’s life, he wanted to be certain that his affairs were in order. He signed a revised and updated “last will” only days after Bonder withdrew her claim.
He also pondered whether there was anyone he could trust with his medical and financial interests. Kirk’s world was getting smaller and smaller. His business and social activities were declining. Still, he craved the comfort of trusted friends. That narrowed his search for where to turn next.
He reached for his phone and punched in a familiar number.
On California Route 52 just outside La Jolla, the cell phone rang in Una’s white 300-series BMW. “Private Number,” said caller ID. She smiled. It was Kirk. Their conversation began as it almost always began, with Kirk asking, “Is this a good time?”19
“It’s always a good time,” she said, as usual.
His low, rumbling voice was strong that day. Kirk was feeling good, she could tell. He got straight to business.
“Una, I want to marry you. I should’ve done this a long time ago,” Kirk said. “I know you’ve always had my back. I know I can trust you.”
He promised that Una could keep her home in La Jolla where she had family and an active social life. She could live halftime with him in Beverly Hills. He said he wanted to make Una his conservator in case of future medical emergencies.
The cell-phone proposal wasn’t quite so romantic as Kirk’s 2007 engagement scene—the diamond ring from a jewelry boutique at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel presented from bended knee in a suite at the Beverly Hills Hotel along with vows of eternal love. “He was so romantic, absolutely gooey inside,” she recalled.
Kirk’s lawyers were aghast. Their new “last will” was barely three weeks old, but it would become instantly obsolete with a new spouse. They advised the couple to “just live together.” But he insisted on marriage. So the lawyers insisted on Una signing a waiver of spousal rights. Lawyers took it from there.
In business, Kirk sometimes followed up his handshakes of agreement with a few words of advice, “Don’t let the lawyers screw this up.”20 In romance, however, he failed to follow his own advice.
Lawyer-induced delays mounted as prenuptial negotiations dragged on. Una signed some agreements, refused to sign others—including one that denied her consultation rights in case Kirk encountered medical emergencies. A November wedding date came and went. For a couple of months from December in
to January 2014, Kirk’s health and stamina sagged. Una noticed that he sometimes seemed confused and depressed. But by late March he was done waiting for the lawyers.
He finally announced, “Let’s get married next weekend.”
One final flurry of lawyering failed to deter the inevitable. With a dozen guests gathered around, Kirk Kerkorian and Una Davis were wed late morning on March 30, 2014, at the Roxbury Drive residence. A justice of the peace presided over the brief civil ceremony. Best man was Kirk’s UCLA doctor and fellow Armenian, Eric Esrailian.
As the corks popped on bottles of Cristal Champagne, Kirk proudly flashed his new Tiffany silver wedding band and accepted best wishes from his aides, household staff, and tennis partners.
Moments into the celebration, attorney Patty Glaser approached Una. “Congratulations,” she said. “I’d like to ask you to keep this private—to not tell anyone” about the marriage.
Barely three weeks later, Kirk ordered Una out of his house. He raged that she had left him alone while she spent several days in Florida with her cancer-stricken sister. Kirk had reacted with similar harshness to his longtime valet, abruptly firing Ron Falahi after he missed a weekend of work to attend a granddaughter’s wedding. Both trips had been discussed with Kirk. Both Ron and Una thought they had Kirk’s blessing.21
“He just kicked us both out,” Una said. She wasn’t that surprised. “He was getting more difficult in those days. And I was tired of all the people running his life and mine.”
Kirk later called to see how Una was doing. He wanted to stay in touch. She told him to call anytime. He said he couldn’t call out; she had to call him. It was the last time they spoke.22
A year later, Kirk was stricken and bedridden. Alex Yemenidjian came to visit. He had just sold his interest in the Tropicana resort.
“Good! Does that mean you can retire?” Kirk asked.
The Gambler Page 33