Las Vegas Weekly

September 12, 2012 · 9 PM

Joan Dangerfield-Kirk Kerkorian were ‘engaged,’ but never planned to marry

By John Katsilometes

Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian is pictured in Las Vegas in this Feb. 24, 2005, file photo.

Photo: Joe Cavaretta / AP

Photo: Kat Tuohy Photography/Flash Mob America

With Joan Dangerfield at his side, Kirk Kerkorian enjoys the trappings of turning 95 at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Wednesday, June 6, 2012.

Reports about iconic resort magnate Kirk Kerkorian’s surprise engagement to former model Lu Beard raise a question of Kerkorian’s engagement status in the months leading up to this most recent update.

In June, on his 95th birthday, Kerkorian was feted by the woman who referred to herself as his fianceé, Joan Dangerfield, with dancers from Flash Mob America performing an impressively choreographed routine to “To Know Him Is to Love Him” at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Dangerfield is the widow of Rodney Dangerfield and had been identified as Kerkorian’s girlfriend/significant other and, at times, fianceé since at least December 2009, when Kerkorian presented Dangerfield with a brilliant diamond ring.

But the couple never did make formal plans to marry. That status held until this week, when a spokesman told the Review-Journal that Kerkorian announced his engagement to Beard, widow of Oklahoma oil baron William Beard (who died in April 2011), during a dinner party. William Beard’s family founded the Beard Oil Co., and Lu Beard is reportedly a longtime friend of Kerkorian.

What can be said is this latest proposal seems to have ended the engagement between Kerkorian and Dangerfield but did not cancel plans for a wedding because none was scheduled. It all seems a bit convoluted, but that’s about as simple as this turn of events can be illustrated.

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

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