Fred Trump Jr.

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.
Trump in 1966
Born	Frederick Crist Trump Jr. (1938-10-14)October 14, 1938 Queens, New York City, U.S.
Died	September 26, 1981(1981-09-26) (aged 42) Queens, New York City, U.S.
Resting place	All Faiths Cemetery, Queens, New York City
Other names	Freddy Trump
Alma mater	Lehigh University (BA)
Occupation(s)	Pilot, maintenance worker
Spouse	Linda Clapp ​ (m. 1962)​
Children	Fred III Mary
Parents	Fred Trump Mary Anne MacLeod Trump
Family	Trump family

Both Fred Sr. and Donald disparaged Trump 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.

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. 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.

Trump attended Lehigh University and joined a historically Jewish fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu, although he was not Jewish. 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.

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 Trump was the opposite in personality. In 1966, Trump was listed in newspapers as vice president of the company, but he had a difficult time working with his father. 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 Trump'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 being a bus driver or chauffeur.

 

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 later shifted 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.

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." (He was 42.)

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 [as running the family business] was just something he was never going to want. ... It was just not his thing. ... I think the mistake that we [Donald and Fred Sr.] made was we assumed that everybody would like [running the business]. That would be the biggest mistake. ... what he loved doing was flying airplanes.

Footnotes