Rodney King would have lived and died a complete unknown, were it not for the most famous home video ever made.

Shot on a dark Los Angeles street the morning of March 2, 1991, it instantly turned King into a worldwide symbol of police abuse and racial conflict.

When a California jury later acquitted the four cops caught beating him on tape, Los Angeles erupted in our nation’s deadliest race riot.

King, who died Sunday at the age of 47, was never the hero of his own saga. That title properly belongs to the little-known maker of the Rodney King video.

His name is George Holliday, and the film he made changed forever how news is collected and disseminated in our modern world.

I tell you this as someone who witnessed first-hand the looting and killing that engulfed Los Angeles, who covered the trials of the cops that beat King, and who heard Holliday’s amazing story in his own words.

The filmmaker was just 31 and living with his wife in an apartment complex in suburban Lakeview Terrace when he accidentally stepped into history.

Tall, red-haired and muscular, Holliday had been born in Canada, raised in Argentina, and ran a small plumbing company.

Sometime after midnight, he was awakened by the sound of helicopters and police sirens in his neighborhood. He stepped out on his terrace and saw cops starting to beat a black man on the street.

So he pulled out the Sony camcorder he bought a few weeks earlier — it was still in its original box — and started filming.

“I’ve never been in a fight in my life,” Holliday told me in 1993, “But I know I would have subdued that guy a lot sooner.”

The next morning, he called police and tried to find out what the black guy had done to be beaten so badly. Cops refused to say anything.

Shaken by what he’d witnessed, Holliday felt someone should know about it.

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That Monday morning, he called KTLA-TV. He told them what he had and he offered to bring the tape over that afternoon.

He was told to leave the tape and someone would call him later. Having no idea what his video was worth, he naively agreed.

Before the station paid him a cent, it aired the tape on its evening news show. From there, it went viral on the national cable and news networks and arguably became the most famous home video of all time.

Thus, the man who pioneered citizen journalism, who made it possible for Rodney King to win a $3.8 million settlement from the city of Los Angeles, made peanuts from his video.

One person later thanked him, however.

In late 1991, Holliday stopped at a gas station and a young black man in a new sports car pulled up at the same pump.

“Hey, George, George Holliday,” the man said. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”

Suddenly, Holliday realized it was Rodney King.

“You saved my life,” King said. “I just wanted to thank you.”

King reached his hand out from the car window and Holliday clasped it.

“Nice to meet you,” Holliday said. It was the only time he ever met the star of his movie.

Deeply bitter at the media who took advantage of him, Holliday rarely talks to the press these days. He didn’t return several calls.

And the camera he used that night? Lost it in a divorce settlement with his wife. Not all heroes have happy endings.