Sam Zell, the real estate tycoon who specialized in distressed assets and acquired The Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times and other storied but troubled newspapers in a leveraged buyout of the parent Tribune Company in 2007, died on May 18. He was 81.

The son of Polish Jews who fled to America in 1939 as WWII engulfed Europe, Mr. Zell, an abrasive and eccentric Chicagoan, The New York Times said, reveled in testing the limits of business deals as well as motorcycles, amassed one of the nation’s largest portfolios of apartments, offices and commercial real estate, mostly by snatching up properties that other investors had snubbed as too risky or even moribund. In essence, he was a high stakes speculator who found opportunities where others saw only stress.

          Mr. Zell was an active philanthropist, giving millions to the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a major door to causes in Israel and to the American Jewish Committee, a Jewish primary school in Chicago named for his father, and other cultural and educational institutions.