June 12, 2006. Copyright 2006, Graphic News. All rights reserved

Playing the Trump card
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, June 12, Graphic News:  HeÕs been up and heÕs been down. But, on the eve of his 60th birthday, Donald Trump appears to have turned full circle. These days the property magnate is best known for his reality TV show, The Apprentice, in which unlucky would-be tycoons are told, ÒYouÕre firedÓ. It caps a career in which Trump has defined himself as the prototype U.S. businessman.

Trump, who turns 60 on June 14, learned his trade from his father, whom he calls his ÒmentorÓ. Since then he has made an unwieldy fortune developing mainly hotels and casinos. ÒThe DonaldÓ, who has twice attempted to run for president, is a fixture on the chat show circuit thanks to his lavish lifestyle and the twists and turns of his personal life.

Donald Trump is synonymous with New York on whose gleaming facades he has often stamped his name or the initial T. Born in Queens in 1946, he attended the New York Military Academy and Fordham University before switching to economics at the Wharton School in Pennsylvania. Like many tycoons, Trump says he was in a hurry to finish his education so that he could start making money. In his case, he joined the family real estate business.

In the late 20th century The Trump Organisation amassed a residential property empire in New York, where the Grand Hyatt hotel and Trump Tower were flagship developments. By the early-1990s, however, recession had bitten in the Big Apple and Trump battled to repay millions of dollars of debt, eventually filing for bankruptcy. The death of his father, Fred, in 1999 enabled him to turn his back on his financial problems -- for a while.

Not one to let a few money worries dim his confidence, in 2001 Trump completed the 72-storey Trump World Tower, a residential block near the United Nations complex, and work began on the Trump Place development. Since then his casino resorts have run into trouble, but the Trump moniker has taken on a life of its own. New Yorkers who canÕt afford to live in his property can buy Trump Vodka or Trump bottled water. This year he launched Trump Mortgage. Business acumen, meanwhile, is taught at Trump University.

Trump has twice abandoned attempts to run for president -- in the Republican primaries in 1996, and as a possible candidate for the Reform Party in 2000. He has resisted attempts to woo him as a candidate for governor of New York, despite strong views on issues such as the construction of the cityÕs Freedom Tower, which he has called Òa pile of crapÓ.

So ubiquitous is Donald Trump, who has parodied his own arrogant bluster on TV and in several movies, that he could almost be considered a U.S. national treasure, albeit an unlikely one. To some, the main source of his fame is that distinctive comb-over hairstyle, for others, it is his well documented turbulent personal life. A first marriage to Ivana ended amid an affair with Marla Maples, whom he married and then divorced in 1999. He is now married to Melania Knauss, who gave birth to a son, TrumpÕs fifth child, earlier this year.
/ENDS