By J.D. SeagravesThe 1983 Hollywood comedy, Trading Places, offered many laymen their first glimpse at the hustle-and-bustle world of commodities trading. The film features a pair of imperious billionaire brothers, the Dukes, who attempt to add to their fortune by illegally manipulating the price of orange juice in the futures market.
The protagonists, played by Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy, foil the brothers' plot and leave the Dukes disgraced and penniless. But although the movie was a work of fiction, the Duke characters were in fact based on a pair of real-life brothers-Bunker and Herbert Hunt-and their story is truly stranger than fiction.
H.L. Hunt and Heirs
The Hunt Brothers' story begins with their father, H.L. Hunt, who, when he died in 1974, was the richest man in America. But despite his sons' affinity for the precious metal, H.L. Hunt was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. To the contrary, H.L. left home at sixteen and worked as a dishwasher, a mule-team driver, a logger, a farmhand, and a construction worker, before finally finding his true calling-poker........read on
