Trump, ‘Apprentice’ loser going Hollywood

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Real estate tycoon and reality TV
star Donald Trump said on Wednesday he is adding a Hollywood
production company to his business empire, and has named a
“fired” contestant from “The Apprentice” to run it.

“He’s a very talented guy, a very fine student from
Harvard, and he’s going to be terrific. I have no doubt about
it,” Trump said of Andy Litinsky, the young Ivy League graduate
put in charge of Trump’s as-yet unnamed new company.

Trump said he is developing a television show based on the
classic real-estate board game Monopoly that is likely to be
one of the first projects to emerge from his latest business
venture.

Trump said he and reality TV producer R.J. Cutler, who
helped make the Oscar-nominated documentary “The War Room,”
have been shopping the TV “Monopoly” idea to major networks and
“people are very interested in it.”

Monopoly seems like an ideal fit for Trump, who owns
several casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey — the original
setting for the board game in which players buy and develop
property while trying to force each other into bankruptcy.

Trump, 60, already has had a hand in producing “The
Apprentice,” as well as the Miss USA and Miss Universe
pageants, but wanted an outlet for developing new programs.

Litinsky, a champion debater and Harvard graduate from
Florida, was 23 when he appeared on “The Apprentice 2″ in 2004
as one of 18 corporate wannabes competing for a high-paying job
in the Trump organization. He even took his final Harvard exams
while the show was in production.

Although Trump gave Litinsky his trademark board-room
dismissal “You’re fired!” in one of the final rounds of the
show, Litinsky made enough of an impression to land a job later
as a project manager on Trump’s business development team.

“He did very well; he just had a particularly bad night,”
Trump said of Litinsky’s “Apprentice” performance.