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 inheriting the family business.

Both Fred Sr. and Donald disparaged Fred Jr. for becoming a pilot instead of continuing in the family real estate business. By the early 1970s, he could no longer function as a pilot due to his alcoholism, a condition which also contributed to his fatal heart attack.

Early life

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

Trump attended Lehigh University and joined a historically Jewish fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu, although he was not Jewish. In 2018, psychoanalyst Justin A. Frank asserted that Fred Jr. joined a Jewish fraternity to rebel against his father, whom Frank alleged was anti-Semitic. (In 2020, Fred Jr.'s daughter, Mary, accused Fred Sr. of being "quite anti-Semitic".) Fred Trump Jr. 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.

Middle life and career

In 1958, Trump 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. The next year, they moved into one of Fred Sr.'s apartments in Jamaica, Queens. During this time, Trump did maintenance jobs on his father's properties.

Fred Sr. wanted his oldest son to be "invulnerable" so he could take over his real-estate business, E. Trump & Son (later known as the Trump Organization), but Fred Jr. was the opposite in personality. In 1966, Fred Jr. was listed in newspapers as vice president of the company, but he had a difficult time working with his father. That same year, 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. According to Fred Jr.'s daughter, Mary L. Trump (born 1965), her grandfather "dismantled him by devaluing and degrading every aspect of his personality." She said Fred Sr. and Donald mocked him for his decision to become an airline pilot, comparing it to being a bus driver or chauffeur.

Alcoholism and death

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

Aftermath

Donald Trump, who since 1976 has spoken publicly of his own abstinence from alcohol, initially cited the formative influence of their father's teetotalism, but also included experience with his brother, saying:

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.

On March 16, 1994, Trump's mother stated in an interview with Irish broadcaster Bibi Baskin that "We lost a son, our oldest son. He was 41. Something a mother never forgets."

In 1999, just after Fred Sr.'s funeral, Fred III's son, William Trump, was born with cerebral palsy. The Trump family agreed to pay for the child's medical expenses. When Fred Sr.'s will was revealed it mandated that Trump'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. Fred III and Mary filed a lawsuit, alleging that their father's siblings, including Donald, exhibited "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," suspended the medical benefits for Trump 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.
Mary’s lawsuit was rejected by a New York 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.
The court decision was upheld on appeal.

In 2019, Donald Trump said about his brother's death:

I do regret having put pressure on him s running the family businesswas just something he was never going to want. ... It was just not his thing. ... I think the mistake that we onald and Fred Sr.made was we assumed that everybody would like it unning the business That would be the biggest mistake. ... what he loved doing was flying airplanes.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Trump, Fred
1938 births
1981 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
American people of German descent
American people of Scottish descent
Aviators from New York (state)
Businesspeople from New York City
Lehigh University alumni
New York National Guard personnel
People from Jamaica, Queens
People from Queens, New York
Fred Trump Jr.
Alcohol-related deaths in New York City