Volume 47, Number 20 · December 21, 2000
Golden Boy
By James Traub
The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire
by Gwenda Blair
Simon and Schuster, 591 pp., $30.00
At the height of his fame, Donald Trump was the caped hero—or was it the villain?—of the national comic book The Eighties. In a time of instant wealth and instant gratification, he was the man with the most toys—skyscrapers, yachts, helicopters, mansions, babes, cover stories, casinos, sports franchises, babes. Gwenda Blair opens her new biography of Trump in 1989, when Trump was, she claims, 'the most famous man in America, if not the world.' (How about the Pope?) She opens the curtain on a mob scene in which Trump is gleefully signing copies of Trump: The Game, a Monopoly-type board game in which the lowest denomination of money was $10 million and Donald's face appeared on every bill.That was Donald, all right: the brazen hero of a new Gilded Age.
Review, 5047 words
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