Fred Trump Jr.

Frederick Crist Trump Jr. (October 14, 1938 – September 26, 1981) was an American airplane pilot and maintenance worker. The eldest son of real-estate businessman Fred Trump Sr., he fell out of his father's favor when he chose to become an airline pilot, leading to his younger brother Donald (the 45th president of the United States) inheriting the family business.

Fred Trump Jr.
Fred Trump Jr. in 1966
Born
Frederick Crist Trump Jr.[1]

(1938-10-14)October 14, 1938
Queens, New York City, U.S.
DiedSeptember 26, 1981(1981-09-26) (aged 42)
Queens, New York City, U.S.
Other namesFreddy Trump
Alma materLehigh University (BA)
Occupation(s)Pilot, maintenance worker
Spouse
Linda Clapp
​
(m. 1962)​
Children
Parents
FamilyTrump family

Both Fred Sr. and Donald disparaged Fred Jr. for becoming a pilot. By the early 1970s, Fred Jr. could no longer function as a pilot due to his alcoholism, a condition which also contributed to his heart attack-induced death.

Early life

Frederick Crist Trump Jr. was born on October 14, 1938, as the first son of wealthy real-estate developer Fred Trump and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump in Queens, New York.[1] In 1956 Fred Jr. graduated from St. Paul's School. In that same year his father Fred Sr. donated money to have the playing fields redone and in his honor were renamed Trump Field.[2]

Fred Jr. attended Lehigh University and joined a historically Jewish fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu, although he was not Jewish.[3][lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2] He became president of the fraternity and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in business, also completing Reserve Officers' Training Corps and entering the Air National Guard as a second lieutenant.[7]

Pilot career

In 1958, Fred Jr. met Linda Clapp while vacationing in the Bahamas. She later became a flight attendant and asked him for help finding an apartment near Idlewild Airport; they soon began dating. He proposed to her in 1961. In early 1962, they were married in Florida, and she resigned from the airline, which did not allow its flight attendants to be married. They settled in Manhattan and had their first child, Frederick Crist Trump III, in November 1962.[8] The next year, they moved into one of Fred Sr.'s apartments in Jamaica, Queens. During this time, Fred Jr. did maintenance jobs on his father's properties.[9] Fred Sr. wanted his oldest son to be "invulnerable" so he could take over his real-estate business, E. Trump & Son, but Fred Jr. was the opposite in personality.[10] In 1966, Fred Jr. was listed in newspapers as vice president of E. Trump & Son, but he had a difficult time working with his father.[11] Fred Jr. left the company to pursue his dream of being a pilot, quickly being accepted at Trans World Airlines, which created tension with his father.[12] According to Fred Jr.'s daughter, Mary L. Trump (born 1965), her grandfather "dismantled him by devaluing and degrading every aspect of his personality." Both Fred Sr. and Donald mocked him for his decision to become an airline pilot, comparing it to driving a bus or being a chauffeur.[13][14][15][16]

Alcoholism and death
Fred Trump Sr. c. 1950

By 1970, after a series of domestic incidents, Clapp asked Fred Jr. to leave their home and arranged for Fred Sr. to change the locks.[17] When his alcoholism prevented him from continuing to function as a pilot, Fred Jr. returned to work for his father's business. He eventually moved into the unfurnished attic of his parents' house, and once again did maintenance on Trump properties.[18][19] On September 26, 1981,[18] at the age of 42, he died from a heart attack caused by his alcohol use.[20][21][lower-alpha 3]

Aftermath

Donald Trump, who has spoken publicly of his own abstinence from alcohol since 1976,[23][24] initially cited the formative influence of their father's teetotalism,[25][26] but later shifted all credit to the adult experience with his brother, claiming:

Every day he lectured me, "Look at the mess I'm in. If I ever catch you smoking, you'll be sorry, drinking even a glass of booze because you'll like it too much." ... Freddy did a good job.[27]

In 1999, just after Fred Sr.'s funeral, Fred III's son, William Trump, was born with cerebral palsy.[28] The Trump family agreed to pay for the child's medical expenses. Fred Sr.'s will was revealed. It mandated that Fred Jr.'s children, Fred III and Mary, would be excluded from their father's share of Fred Sr.'s inheritance; over $20 million would be divided among Fred Sr.'s other children.[12][lower-alpha 4] Fred III and Mary filed a lawsuit, alleging that Fred Jr.'s siblings, including Donald, used "undue influence" on a dementia-addled Fred Sr. to cut them out of the inheritance. Donald, who later said he "was angry because they sued,"[12] suspended the medical benefits for Fred Jr.'s children, as well as Fred III's infant son. According to Mary, she and Fred III sued to have the benefits reinstated, but only her infant nephew received "some accommodations" as a result.[30] Mary’s lawsuit was rejected by a NY State Court, citing that she had signed agreements that removed her ability to sue but granted her more than $2.7 million. The judge found her to have willfully acknowledged (and signed) the agreement and ruled that the agreement was neither coerced nor unfair.[31] The court decision was upheld on appeal.[32]

References

Footnotes
  1. Fred Jr. has been quoted, reputedly via his fraternity brothers, as saying his father was Jewish.[4]
  2. In 2018, psychoanalyst Justin A. Frank asserted that Fred Jr. joined a Jewish fraternity to rebel against his father, whom Frank alleges was anti-Semitic.[5] In 2020, Fred Jr.'s daughter, Mary, accused Fred Sr. of being "quite anti-Semitic".[6]
  3. His death certificate states that he died on September 29 of "natural causes".[22]
  4. They both received $200,000, the same amount given to each grandchild.[29]

Citations
  1. Trump 2020, p. 31.
  2. Kordes, John (March 29, 2018). "The Kordes Korner". Garden City News. Garden City, NY.
  3. Gerber, Drew (August 3, 2016). "That Time Trump's Older Brother Fred Pretended To Be Jewish – To Join a Jewish Frat". The Forward. Archived from the original on January 20, 2017. Retrieved June 10, 2017.
  4. "Does Donald Trump Have Jewish Roots?". Vos Iz Neias?. November 1, 2019. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  5. Frank, Justin A. (2018). Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. Penguin Press. p. 64. ISBN 978-0-7352-2032-4.
  6. Corn, David (July 22, 2020). "Mary Trump on why Donald Trump lies, why he's 'racist,' and why she wrote her book". Mother Jones. Retrieved September 28, 2021.
  7. Trump 2020, p. 53.
  8. Trump 2020, pp. 55–56.
  9. Trump 2020, p. 57.
  10. Trump 2020, p. 41.
  11. "Fred Trump Jr". trump24h.com. Retrieved August 31, 2020.
  12. Horowitz, Jason (January 2, 2016). "For Donald Trump, Lessons From a Brother's Suffering". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 27, 2017. Retrieved June 10, 2017.
  13. Lozada, Carlos (July 9, 2020). "Review of 'Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man' by Mary L. Trump". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 16, 2020.
  14. D'Antonio, Michael (June 17, 2020). "The psychologist in the Trump family speaks". CNN. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
  15. Trump 2020, pp. 62, 64.
  16. Kranish, Michael (August 8, 2019). "Trump has regrets that he scolded his late, alcoholic brother about his career". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 21, 2021.
  17. Trump 2020, p. 85.
  18. "Part 1: New Frontiers". Biography: The Trump Dynasty. February 25, 2019. Event occurs at 1:21. A&E.
  19. Trump 2020, p. 93.
  20. Blair 2015, p. 320.
  21. Trump 2020, author's note
  22. Trump 2020, p. 127.
  23. "Donald Trump, Real Estate Promoter, Builds Image as He Buys Buildings". The New York Times. November 1, 1976.
  24. "RUSH Transcript: Donald Trump //CNN Republican Presidential Town Hall Columbia, SC". CNN. February 18, 2016.
  25. Trump, Donald J.; Schwartz, Tony (2009) [1987]. Trump: The Art of the Deal. New York: Random House. p. 96. ISBN 978-0-307-57533-3. I have a father who has always been a rock, very straight and very solid.... And I'm as much of a rock as my father. This was a totally different world. I remember wondering if every successful person in Manhattan was a big drinker. I figured if that was the case, I was going to have a big advantage.
  26. Trump, Donald J.; Leerhsen, Charles (1990) [1990]. Trump: Surviving at the Top. New York: Random House. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-307-57533-3. Discipline is something I learned from watching my father... Long vacations, drinking, drugs—all of those things are bad for discipline.
  27. "Donald Trump Talks Family, Women in Unearthed Transcript". The Hollywood Reporter (published October 13, 2016). March 10, 1994.
  28. Philip Bump. "There are a lot more Trumps than you might realize". The Washington Post.
  29. Collman, Ashley (June 15, 2020). "Trump's niece is publishing a tell-all book that says she leaked tax documents to help The New York Times investigate the president's finances". Business Insider. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
  30. ABC News Exclusive: Mary Trump Interview with Stephanopoulos (television production). ABC News. July 16, 2020. 43 minutes in. Retrieved September 10, 2020.
  31. "Trump Defeats Niece in Court" (news article). Reuters. November 15, 2022.
  32. "Mary Trump Loses Lawsuit Again" (news article). ABC News. June 22, 2023.

Works cited
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