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The yuppie legend with a towering ego (and hairstyle) to match


his hotels and casinos. Ivana and bankruptcy slowed him down,
but hit TV series 'The Apprentice' put the dealmaker back on top.

A gifted self-publicist, Donald Trump is a rich property tycoon who


achieved notoriety for his flamboyant style in the 1980s. Despite being
declared bankrupt in 1990, Trump has rebuilt his fortune and is currently
thought to be worth around $1.6 billion.

The third generation of a business family, the young Trump assisted his
father in ventures to build affordable housing. He had a good eye for
business and after school Trump went to study finance at Pennsylvanias
Wharton School. When he left, his chief resolve was to do real estate on
a larger scale than his father.

To do this Trump needed connections. Though broke, he moved to


Manhattan and charmed his way past the members committee of an
exclusive club; their only condition being that he did not steal the older
members' wives. With these New York contacts came the access to power
and money, and Trump made the rich and famous his niche market. He
understood their psychology well and, while other developers fought to
cut corners and lower prices, Trump raised his.

He became one of the most powerful landlords of the 1980s, with


ownership of several glass towers at exclusive addresses in New York, two
casinos and the Trump Shuttle airline.

With the 1990s came recession, and when Trump was unable to pay a $2
billion bank loan, most of his assets were seized by creditors and his wife
divorced him. Remarkably, though, he fought his way back to riches and
wrote a book about it, called 'The Art of the Comeback'.

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In 1999, Trump announced he was considering running for President as


the Reform Party candidate in 2000. It did not work out though and in his
book Trump writes that he would never have made a good head of state,
because he is too honest and a germophobe, so hates to shake hands with
anybody. His 2004 reality television series, 'The Apprentice', once more
took him to the pinnacle of success.

Trumps first wife Ivana has since become a celebrity in her own right, as
have their three children Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka (who was a model
before later choosing to join her fathers business). However, they
divorced in 1992, when he married Marla Maples, who gave birth to his
fourth child Tiffany in October 1993. In 2006, his third wife Melania Knauss
gave birth to a son named Barron William Trump.

As well as continued success with The Apprentice, which has now been
syndicated around the world, including a UK version with entrepreneur
Alan Sugar, it is Trumps political aspirations that have once again found
him in the media eye.

In 2010, he announced a desire to run in the 2012 US presidential


election, and later identified a leaning to the Republican Party. During his
tentative campaign, the most notable stunt was to raise questions about
the incumbent Barack Obama's citizenship status.

He repeatedly called for Obama to release his birth certificate, as Trump


did not believe he was truly born in the United States. This gained him
support among the right-wing Republican faction, the Tea Party, but little
amongst the liberal media. He was accused of racism, on account of
Obama being African-American, as well as being called out of touch and
farcical for believing that the Presidents background would not have been
thoroughly checked. The issue was resolved when Obama publically
released his birth certificate, confirming that he was born in Hawaii. Trump
later took credit for this move.

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Following this episode, in May 2011, Trump announced that he would not
seek the Republican nomination. He claimed that business is my greatest
passion and he was not prepared to step down from his business
responsibilities. He did, however, maintain that if he were to run, he would
be successful.

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