Character Analysis
(Avoiding Spoilers)
Grew Up… without riches and fame. Donnie always had the hunger for money, but it wasn’t until he got married and had children that he realized he’d better start making his riches fast.
Living… under the command of his new best friend Jordan Belfort, a stockbroker. Donnie and Jordan live in the same apartment complex, and after Donnie spots Jordan’s expensive car he introduces himself, promising, “If you show me a pay stub for $72,000, I’ll quit my job right now and work for you.” The rest is history. Together, their company Stratton Oakmont becomes one of the fastest growing firms on Wall Street.
Profession… Vice President of Stratton Oakmont, a brokerage firm. Donnie toughens up and helps Jordan lead their company to the top of charts. Stratton Oakmont not only makes a name for itself as a successful company, but also as a stylish model for the wild Wall Street lifestyle.
Interests… drugs of all kinds. Donnie and Jordan become addicted to alcohol, marijuana, and Quaaludes, among many other substances. Donnie is the one who first gets Jordan into drugs, when he introduces him to crack.
Relationship Status… married. Donnie is married to his first cousin. Jordan expresses concern that their children might come out with birth defects, but Donnie assures him that their children are fine, luckily.
Challenge… surviving the wild lifestyle and becoming the richest person on earth – after Jordan, of course. Donnie takes as many risks as any adrenaline junkie, and isn’t afraid to make a complete fool of himself. He will get nude publicly, and do drugs in front of Jordan’s family. He’s not the most stable guy, and while aggression and unpredictability can be an asset in his line of work, too much of it can be lead to disaster.
Personality… oafish, money-grubbing, and cruel to animals and humans alike. When a young broker wastes his work-day taking care of a pet goldfish at the office, Donnie steals and swallows the poor fish to make a point to all of Stratton Oakmont. Frankly, he’s out of control, so there’s a fair chance his world might come crumbling down.
Get to Know him in...
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A New York stockbroker refuses to cooperate in a large securities fraud case involving corruption on Wall Street, corporate banking world and mob infiltration.
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Now a major motion picture directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER By day he made thousands of dollars a minute. By night he spent it as fast as he could, on drugs, sex, and international globe-trotting. From the binge that sank a 170-foot motor yacht and ran up a $700,000 hotel tab, to the wife and kids waiting at home, and the fast-talking, hard-partying young stockbrokers who called him king and did his bidding, here, in his own inimitable words, is the story of the ill-fated genius they called . . . THE WOLF OF WALL STREET In the 1990s Jordan Belfort, former kingpin of the notorious investment firm Stratton Oakmont, became one of the most infamous names in American finance: a brilliant, conniving stock-chopper who led his merry mob on a wild ride out of the canyons of Wall Street and into a massive office on Long Island. Now, in this astounding and hilarious tell-all autobiography, Belfort narrates a story of greed, power, and excess that no one could invent. Reputedly the prototype for the film Boiler Room, Stratton Oakmont turned microcap investing into a wickedly lucrative game as Belfort’s hyped-up, coked-out brokers browbeat clients into stock buys that were guaranteed to earn obscene profits—for the house. But an insatiable appetite for debauchery, questionable tactics, and a fateful partnership with a breakout shoe designer named Steve Madden would land Belfort on both sides of the law and into a harrowing darkness all his own. From the stormy relationship Belfort shared with his model-wife as they ran a madcap household that included two young children, a full-time staff of twenty-two, a pair of bodyguards, and hidden cameras everywhere—even as the SEC and FBI zeroed in on them—to the unbridled hedonism of his office life, here is the extraordinary story of an ordinary guy who went from hustling Italian ices at sixteen to making hundreds of millions. Until it all came crashing down . . . Praise for The Wolf of Wall Street “Raw and frequently hilarious.”—The New York Times “A rollicking tale of [Jordan Belfort’s] rise to riches as head of the infamous boiler room Stratton Oakmont . . . proof that there are indeed second acts in American lives.”—Forbes “A cross between Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities and Scorsese’s GoodFellas . . . Belfort has the Midas touch.”—The Sunday Times (London) “Entertaining as pulp fiction, real as a federal indictment . . . a hell of a read.”—Kirkus Reviews From the Hardcover edition.
