(MONEY Magazine) – When news reports recently surfaced that Kirk Kerkorian, the 83-year-old owner of MGM Studios, was interested in selling the company, the investing community braced for the exciting climax to this, the third installment of an epic Hollywood-Wall Street romance. --A.A.

1969-1985 Kerkorian, an amateur welterweight boxer turned Las Vegas real estate developer, buys MGM for $650 million. He buys another Hollywood legend, United Artists, for $380 million, folds it into MGM and in 1985 agrees to sell the combined studios to Ted Turner for $1.5 billion.

1986-1990 Running into money problems, Turner almost immediately sells MGM back to Kerkorian for $780 million (though Turner retains many classic MGM titles, such as Gone With the Wind). Then in 1990 Kerkorian turns around and sells MGM again--this time to Italian magnate Giancarlo Parretti for $1.3 billion.

1996-2002 When Parretti can't meet his debt payments in 1992, his French bank, Credit Lyonnais, takes over MGM and looks for a buyer. Kerkorian reappears and leads a buyback for $1.3 billion in 1996. Cut to this year. Stories circulate that Kerkorian is looking for buyers once again. Reported asking price: $7 billion. Interested potential buyers are said to include Disney, Viacom and News Corp.