15 Years Ago In Time

He's a reality-TV show now, putting aspiring moguls through their paces on NBC's The Apprentice. When TIME put him on the cover in 1989, DONALD TRUMP was still trying to define his own reality.

At 6 ft. 2 in., real estate tycoon Donald J. (for John) Trump does not really loom colossus-high above the horizon of New York and New Jersey. He has created no great work of art or ideas, and even as a maker or possessor of money he does not rank among the top ten, or even 50. Yet at 42 he has seized a large fistful of that contemporary coin known as celebrity. There has been artfully hyped talk about his having political ambitions, worrying about nuclear proliferation, even someday running for President. No matter how farfetched that may be, something about his combination of blue-eyed swagger and success has caught the public fancy and made him in many ways a symbol of an acquisitive and mercenary age. Gossip columnist Liz Smith summed it up when she wrote, "Even if Trump is the truest, most flamboyant child of Mammon yet produced at this waning moment of the 20th century, I like his style."

--TIME, Jan. 16, 1989