Sometimes it only takes one idea to change a life and become immensely rich. Mark Burnett, 64, knows something about this. Two decades ago, he was the one who invented the reality TV show The Apprentice, which revived the declining career of Donald Trump and placed the latter on a launching pad towards the success that we know. Since then, Burnett, the son of a worker born in the eastern suburbs of London, has accumulated a fortune estimated at $500 million. Not bad for a former British army paratrooper engaged in the Falklands War (1982) at the age of 22, who became a T-shirt seller on the Venice Beach promenade in Los Angeles, then, in the 1990s 1990, television producer in Hollywood.
“Trump looked like a fool”
At the time, Burnett – whose journey is recounted by investigative journalist Patrick Radden Reefe in the formidable Thieves! Bandits! Scammers! published these days by Belfond – is still just one producer among others. However, in 1997 he discovered the Swedish reality television program Robinson Expedition. He bought the rights and hastened to rename it Survivor the following year – the French version, launched in 2001, is called Koh Lanta. The show is an audience hit. “Burnett was a second sword in Hollywood but this triumph made him an oracle of entertainment,” explains Patrick Radden Reefe. A few years pass and Burnett, who has long teeth, invents a new concept: Survivor, but in town. Candidates will compete for a position in a company. The urban jungle, in short. Title of the show? The Apprentice (The Apprentice). To play the role of the big boss, Burnett needs an “incarnation”. Business leaders from the New York establishment are approached. They refuse.
The producer then thinks of a certain Donald Trump. Famous since the 1980s, he shaped his character thanks to the best-seller The Art of the Deal. Since then, his real estate empire has faltered. Accumulating bankruptcies, he is, so to speak, a has been. “In 2003, he was nothing more than a fanatic confined to the local scene, a frequent object of ridicule in the New York tabloid Page Six“, reminds L’Express of Radden Reefe, who was the first to be interested in Burnett’s role in the life of Donald Trump. “He was considered a joker, best known for his funny haircut and his series of bankruptcies. and the gold faucets in his apartment on 5th Avenue, which everyone knew were ‘fake.'” At first, Trump hesitates, as he recounted in the 2000s: “I didn’t want to to have cameras all over my office when I talk to entrepreneurs, politicians, mobsters and all the other guys I have to talk business with. You know, the mobsters wouldn’t like there to be cameras all over the room when they’re talking to me.”
He also invented the punchline “You’re fired!”
That’s good, the concept of The Apprentice has little to do with reality. On the contrary, the show is highly scripted, with lines written in advance and a direction worthy of a bad TV movie. Tempted, Trump accepts Burnett’s proposal. Undisciplined, he proves incapable of respecting the script. Abrasive, he is capable of throwing in a candidate’s face: “John, don’t take this the wrong way, but everyone hates you, okay?” Disruptive but creative, he invents the punchline “You’re fired,” the show’s trademark. “Trump belongs to the same category as the former president of the Philippines Rodrigo Dutertre who called the pope a ‘son of a bitch’, judge Patrick Radden Reefe. On TV, transgressive personalities are irresistible. You listen to them, your heart goes to beat a little faster and you’ll be left wanting more.”
“The concept of The Apprentice is based on a scam”
Donald Trump hits the screen. But working with him is no easy task. “As he did not follow the progress of the game from day to day, the real estate magnate regularly arrived poorly prepared for the final sequence”, rewinds the one who is also one of the feathers of the prestigious New Yorker. “Without really knowing which candidate had come out on top, he had to utter the famous phrase: ‘You’re fired.’ head.” In these cases, editors were forced to “reverse engineer” the episode, reviewing hundreds of hours of footage to highlight the rare moments where the candidate may have made a blunder. “This kind of sleight of hand is common in the reality TV industry. However, the concept of The Apprentice was based on some kind of scam.”
Mark Burnett – also producer of The Voice – had initially planned to change presenters each year, but he decided to retain Trump. For the next ten seasons, he was the sole star of The Apprentice. Burnett and Trump partnered 50-50 and increased product placements on the show, earning them millions of dollars. Trump also takes the opportunity to promote his properties, one after the other. The show is filmed in one of his Trump Tower apartments, which he rents for production. Candidates hold events at Trump National Golf Club, where they sell Trump Ice bottled water. And the winning team from season 1 wins the right to stay and play at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, followed by cameras (the establishment, in bankruptcy, closed its doors for good shortly after).
Season after season, the image of Donald Trump evolves and establishes itself in the imagination of Americans. The show’s cameramen film their star from a low angle, Leni Riefenstahl style. “Trump dominated the viewer,” we read in Thieves! Bandits! Scammers! His appearances were choreographed for maximum effect, against a backdrop of dark music, based on drums and electronic cymbals. The “board room” – the setting in which Trump decided which candidate to fire – was bathed in the menacing chiaroscuro of a remake of the Godfather. And we saw Trump showing participants around his rococo apartment at the top of Trump Tower, declaring: “I show this place to very few people. Presidents, kings…” In the small world of tabloids where he had long evolved, Trump had always been “Donald”. Thanks to The Apprenticehe finally became Mr. Trump.
Thieves! Scammers! Bandits! by Patrick Radden Keefe (ed. Belfond)
© / Edition Belfond
“He embodies the idea that the poor have of the rich,” said essayist Fran Lebowitz. Financier Jonathan Braun, who appeared on season 1 of the show, added: “Middle America saw all the flashy things, the helicopter and the gold-plated sinks, and they saw the person richest person in the universe. People I knew in high finance understood that it was a big joke. Thanks to The Apprenticethe notoriety of Donald Trump – until then confined to New York – has in any case reached all homes as far as the depths of Nebraska. Among ordinary people, he is now considered the “king of Manhattan” even though he is far, very far, from being a major player in the New York real estate market. Radden Reefe’s conclusion: “Ultimately, his political career rests on two ‘fakes’: The Art of the Dealthe 1982 bestseller that he did not write and in which he pretends to be an outstanding businessman, and The Apprenticethis bogus program which allowed him to make himself known to everyone. Without this show, Trump would never have become president.”
“A fairground barker.”
In 2015, Trump stopped The Apprentice to enter politics. The rest is known. After Trump 1 at the White House, here is season 2 which starts on January 20. “His second term will be like The Celebrity Apprentice, this celebrity version of The Apprentice. From 2008, this variation of the initial program featured second-rate celebrities,” smiles Radden Reefe. Anisi, Robert F. Kennedy Jr (appointed to Health) and former Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth (appointed to the Pentagon) will be the celebrities of the upcoming presidency.
As for the discreet Briton Mark Burnett, today a devout Christian, he has just been appointed the president’s envoy to the United Kingdom. A position whose contours remain unclear. In New York, Patrick Radden Reefe sighs: “He will be remembered above all for having offered a constantly bankrupt fairground huckster the role of a man who had the potential to become the leader of the free world.”
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