City jeweller charms billionaire in bid to get pal on TV show

IT TAKES a lot to stop Donald Trump in his tracks – especially when it comes to golf.

But a glamorous Edinburgh jeweller managed to halt the billionaire in mid-swing in a bid to get her lifelong friend on Trump's top US TV show.

Trump was left speechless on the 18th hole when determined former actress Gaynor Turner buttonholed him on the course in Aberdeen, begging the property magnate to give her New York pal a leg-up to appear on The Apprentice USA.

The stunt by the Macintyres of Edinburgh jewellery store owner was the latest in a campaign to get her close friend Clive Spiegel, a Fringe Festival star turned Canadian TV-soap crooner, on the top-rated show.

Despite attracting 20,000 people to the campaign's Facebook group and recording a single at the city's Canongate Studios, Gaynor had failed to attract Trump's attention.

But on Friday the former London stage star made him an offer he couldn't refuse when she pledged to teach his wife, who has just launched her own designer jewellery line, the tricks of the trade in exchange for a place among the chosen few.

She is now hoping that Clive – a star of numerous Fringe Festival plays in the 1980s but now a high-profile Manhattan psychiatrist – will have his chance against yuppie entrepreneurs and cut-throat ad-men.

Gaynor said: "Clive and I went to acting school together 25 years ago and we've been very close friends since.

"Call it a random act of kindness, but I've made it my mission to get him on that show.

"We decided that he's the one man to break the current mould.

"I know Donald Trump is trying to get on the good side of us Scots, so I thought if I could get to him personally that would improve the chances."

Gaynor said she pulled out all the stops for her once-in-a-lifetime meeting with the tycoon, who was posing for photographers and TV cameras at the Royal Aberdeen Golf Club at the time.

She said: "I have long legs and had this short skirt on. He was on the 18th hole, and he looked at me and came over. I explained that I was determined to get Clive on the show and gave him all these flyers.

"He was so lovely, he gave me a hug and turned me to the cameras. His wife has just launched a jewellery business, and I promised him if he'd consider having Clive on the show I would teach her everything I know.

"This season the show is looking for contestants who have lost out due to the economic crisis, rather than just the usual business types, and that's what has happened to Clive.

"Even though he's very successful, the US health reforms have hit practitioners like him pretty hard."

Clive, 46, who now lives in New York, added: "I would be the first doctor to go on the show and I think Trump would appreciate my analytical skills. I think Gaynor's campaign is the cleverest thing and very funny. We're such old friends, and if anyone can do it, she can."