Who

The low-key, self-effacing real estate developer is also a TV personality, bestselling author, casino/resort/golf course developer, university founder, public speaker, magazine publisher, potential political candidate, and—as of 2007—amateur wrestler. You'll also find his name attached to brands of clothing, bottled water, fragrance, vodka, and steak. He's the husband of Melania, and the father of Don Jr. and Ivanka.

Backstory

When Donald Trump was a little boy, he'd steal his brother's blocks and glue them together with his own to build toy buildings—or so goes the story, which has been rehashed dozens of times over the years to demonstrate that even at a young age, Donald was familiar with the concept of leverage, not to mention exceedingly greedy. He was raised in Manhattan; his father, Fred Trump, an immigrant from Germany—where they were known as the Drumpfs—made a fortune during the middle part of the 20th century constructing apartment buildings in Brooklyn and Queens.

When Fred retired, he turned over a $250 million real estate portfolio to his kids. But unlike his dad, who had been content to build in the outer boroughs, Donald used his share of the family cash—and his father's political ties—to move into the Manhattan market in the '70s. In one of his first deals, he took over the faded Commodore Hotel in 1976 and turned it into the Grand Hyatt. When he couldn't change the name to the Trump building, he settled for calling the restaurant Trumpets instead.

Donald spent much of the '80s on a tear as he developed apartment buildings—his most notable project was the pink-marbled Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue—and plunged millions into Atlantic City. But the furious pace came to haunt him at the end of the decade when the market started to turn south and by 1990, Trump had accumulated more than $2 billion in debt. He propped himself up soon enough. In the mid-'90s, he staged a comeback, partnering with a number of other investors to build a collection of glitzy buildings over the abandoned rail yards along the Hudson River between 59th and 72nd Streets. He's gone on to parlay that into a countless real estate deals, media ventures, and licensing arrangements, which have carried his name—and bizarre hairdo—into every home in America.

Of note

Trump has ricocheted from the precipice of ruin to extraordinary wealth in the past decade and a half. In the early '90s, when he was close to rock bottom, his father bailed him out by sending an associate to one of his struggling casinos to purchase $3 million in chips, thereby (temporarily) staving off bankruptcy. Today he sits atop an exceedingly valuable brand, albeit one exceedingly cheesy—yet there's no shortage of people willing to pay to use the Trump trademark. These days much of his income is derived from licensing deals, whereby he's paid fat upfront fees for the use of his name, as well as a percentage of revenues/profits. Most of his gold-tinted real estate projects are structured in a similar fashion, with Trump receiving an estimated 8 to 15 percent cut from the sale of the a particular building's condos.

Of course, the value of the Trump name has increased a good deal in recent years. Although his ego has loomed large over Manhattan for decades, middle America's blissful ignorance of the Donald was breached in 2004, when his reality show The Apprentice bowed on NBC. The show has since faded from the spotlight—witness the 2008 debut of the unfortunate Celebrity Apprentice—but it turned the Donald into a national phenomenon, and he's used his newfound celebrity status to profit accordingly. In addition to the countless real estate projects that bear his insignia, he's lent his name to a line of vodka, bottled water, and mail-order steaks. There's also a Trump fragrance, a line of cheap clothing at Macy's, a mortgage lending company, a travel site, and a get-rich-quick seminar program. Want to start a Trump-branded product yourself? You'll need to come up with a generous (seven-figure) upfront fee and be willing to fork over 20 percent of the profits. For more information, call 212-247-7100 and ask to speak to Rhona.

Keeping score

Trump's net worth has always been the subject of controversy. Trump says it's north of $6 billion. Forbes estimated it at $3 billion in 2008. New York Times reporter Timothy O'Brien, who wrote a book about the Donald, estimated it in the range of $150 million in 2005. Naturally, Trump was outraged at the suggestion he wasn't an actual billionaire and sued O'Brien for $5 billion over the figure.

Drama

With the possible exception of himself, there's nothing the Donald loves more than a messy public feud. In late 2006 and early 2007, he and Rosie traded insults on TV for over a month, with the ever-chivalrous Donald calling Rosie a "fat loser," a "fat pig," a "slob," and "disgusting." (It worked out nicely for everyone, as ratings for both of their shows edged higher.) He also memorably feuded with Martha Stewart following her lackluster turn on The Apprentice, and sparred with fellow narcissist/billionaire Mark Cuban after he tried to imitate Donald's success with a reality show of his own.

But long before Trump's TV persona surfaced, he'd tangled with dozens of people, including Ed Koch (whom he called a "moron"), Steve Wynn ("a scumbag"), cartoonist Garry Trudeau ("Trudeau's wife, Jane Pauley, is much more talented than he is") and Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice ("a jerk"). Trump also still seems to be smarting from Graydon Carter's immortal description of him as a "short-fingered vulgarian" in Spy in the early '90s. He recently described the Vanity Fair chief as an "overweight editor with bad hair."

The look

Trump claims his hair is natural; no one knows for sure. What is known is that he has had numerous plastic surgery procedures over the years—one of his surgeons was Dr. Steven Hoefflin, the quasi-disgraced Los Angeles surgeon who also worked on Michael Jackson. Trump's shining white teeth are courtesy of Dr. Larry Rosenthal.

In print

Trump has authored a slew of books over the years, including Trump: The Art of the Deal, Trump: The Art of Survival, Trump: The Art of the Comeback, none of which are any good and all of which feature titles that start with a five-letter word beginning with the letter "T." His agent in the early days was Binky Urban. (He now negotiates his own deals so he can keep the commission.) Three of his books were edited by Jonathan Karp, to whom he once dictated a chapter entitled "the art of the hair" by phone from his jet.

Personal

Trump met his first wife, Ivana, at the Montreal Summer Olympics in 1976. They married in 1977 and had three kids before divorcing: Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric. After the marriage's messy end in 1990 (which required him to pony up $25 million in the divorce settlement), Trump married Marla Maples. The couple had one daughter, Tiffany, before divorcing in 1997. He married Slovenian model Melania Knauss in 2005 and they had a son named Barron in 2006.

Habitat

Trump lives at the Trump Tower in a 50-room spread on the 66-68th floors that he's valued at $100 million. (The building actually has only 58 floors, but Trump felt that wasn't adequately grand, so he skipped floor numbers to give his tenants a "psychic boost." His office, incidentally, is located in the same building, on the 26th floor.) His Florida retreat is a 118-room manse originally built by Marjorie Merriweather Post called Mar-a-Lago. It features a private golf course and beach.

Family ties

Donald's father, Fred, passed away in 1999. His mother, Mary, died in 2000. He has several siblings, including Robert, who works for Donald and is married to Blaine Trump; and two sisters: Maryanne Trump Barry, a federal appeals court judge who married Don Jr. and Vanessa Haydon; and Elizabeth Trump Grau. Trump also had a brother, Freddy Jr., a sometime airline pilot who drank himself to death in 1981 at the age of 43. To this day—and despite the fact he has a line of vodka—Trump does not drink or smoke.

Toys

The Donald gets around in a Boeing 727-100 and a Sikorsky helicopter. He no longer owns the 282-foot yacht, the Trump Princess, that was purchased from Adnan Khashoggi for $29 million. Trump sold it to a nephew of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd. At Mar-a-Lago, you'll find Trump's fleet of cars which include a Maybach, Rolls, Ferrari 360 Modena Spider convertible, and Range Rover with the vanity plate "Birdog."