Tony Prince

Anthony Prince, otherwise known as Gay Tony, is a nightclub entrepreneur in the GTA IV era. Tony plays a major role in the DLC pack The Ballad of Gay Tony, as its name suggests. In the first trailer for the game, he tells Luis that he is about to lose all he owns, since he owed money to Rocco Pelosi and Mori Kibbutz.

Childhood
Tony Prince was born in 1958 in the Midwest to Jewish parents, and "grew up" in Dukes. According to the Maisonette 9 website, "as a young boy he wandered to the Humboldt River and dreamed of living on the other side so he would no longer be considered bridge and tunnel". He also likely would have struggled with his sexuality in his teen years, especially growing up in a somewhat dangerous neigborhood. In The Ballad of Gay Tony, it is mentioned several times that Tony is originally from Dukes, though he is not proud of it and tries to forget about it, instead identifying with the Algonquin crowd, "and as soon as he went to college, his dream came true". He says of growing up in the 1960s, before the rise of gay subculture in the 1970s, "In my day, gay guys used to be lonely, needy, and lost. Now, they're all in relationships!".

College years and nightclub beginnings
Tony would have gone to college during or after 1976, though he did not focus on his studies. In the mid-1980s, his first experience working at a nightclub came from being in the cloakroom and eventually the front door of "Elephant", until a fire caused it to shut down. In 1983, the first club he opened for himself was "PUDDLE", a rave venue, until Tony was arrested for tax evasion in 1985, spending 3 months in jail. According to Luis, Tony also first earned the nickname "Gay Tony" in 1985 - as the nickname suggests, Tony became openly homosexual by the time he was 27.

Rising career and reputation
According to the Maisonette 9 website, his next club (and first gay club) was Thunder, which was renamed 2 Backed Beast from 1986 on through most of the 1990s, but was eventually shut down by the city. During "yesteryear", he also proprieted clubs called Peacock, Platonic Fury and Cox (Tony "returned to the gay scene" in 1999, which would suggest that none of those three clubs were gay-oriented).

In 1996, he was arrested for possession of cocaine. He also likely met his boyfriend Evan Moss before or during that incident (Evan first got him hooked on painkillers and cocaine, according to Luis)

After the failure of 2 Backed Beast, he opened Hercules in 1999. That same year, he got in police trouble for "public lewdness" and, more importantly, met possibly his two best friends.

Luis Fernando Lopez through an at-risk-youth program. At the time, Luis was 17 and Gay Tony gave him a job as a doorman and bouncer at one of his nightclubs. They quickly form a father-son-like relationship (Luis having been abandoned by his father, and Tony being unlikely to ever have children due to his age and orientation). During Hercules and before Maisonette 9, the counterpart straight club in Tony's portfolio was called Death By Machines, until it burned down and Tony was briefly banned from opening new venues.

By 2008, Tony had been to rehab 6 times. In 2003 his hiatus ended and he was allowed to open Maisonette 9, but still came under heavier scrutiny for his club's standards (including safety, age-checking and drug use inside clubs). Sometime after opening the club, he met Gracie Ancelotti, a mob daughter who once failed to get inside Maisonette 9 but was granted a membership after befriending Gay Tony (as Gracie tells Niko Bellic in "I'll Take Her"). Gay Tony would later be heavily in debt to her father. He also gained world-famous heiress Cloe Parker as a best customer and casual friend. Like Gracie, Cloe uses a lot of cocaine and influences Tony down a similar path. Tony once confides in Luis during I Luv LC "Oh my god, 45 years old and I get my kicks doing blow with 17 year old kids whose only claim to fame is that people know better what their vagina looks like than their face. I should be sent to prison, shouldn't I?".

In 2007 or so, he took a vested interest in Bahama Mamas, then under construction.

A more compact list of Gay Tony's clubs are as follows:
 * 1) PUDDLE (1983-1985, rave venue, until Gay Tony is arrested for tax evasion)
 * 2) Thunder a.k.a. 2 Backed Beast (1986-199?, gay bar, until shut down by city)
 * 3) Peacock (1990s, straight bar)
 * 4) Platonic Fury (1990s, straight bar)
 * 5) Cox (1990s, straight bar)
 * 6) Hercules (1999-Present, gay bar)
 * 7) Death By Machines (1999ish-2002, straight bar, until it burned down)
 * 8) Maisonette 9 (2003-Present, straight bar)

According to www.maisonette9.com: "Tony Prince, the legendary "Gay Tony", grew up in Dukes, as a young boy he wandered to the Humboldt River and dreamed of living on the other side so he would no longer be considered bridge and tunnel and as soon as he went to college, his dream came true. Ignoring school, he spent the middle part of the 1980s working the cloakroom and then the door at the legendary Elephant, until that closed down following a fire. Tony's next venture was the classic rave venue PUDDLE, based famously in a converted mortuary. Unfortunately, the tax man decided Tony was having too much of a good a time and the club was closed and Tony narrowly avoided jail. Next he opened his first gay club, Thunder, which itself evolved into 2 Backed Beast. After this was shut down by the city, he returned to the gay scene with Hercules, which has now been open for ten years.

At the same time, he catered to the heterosexual crowd with the now legendary DEATH BY MACHINES. After DEATH BY MACHINES burned down, Tony was breifly banned from opening any new venues, before he opened Maisonette 9 in 2003. As Tony says, in his inimicable style, "I do it for the love, that and the easy money, access to drugs and ability to suck up to famous people""

The Ballad of Gay Tony
Dominican gangster Luis Fernando Lopez is recruited by Tony as a body guard and bouncer at his clubs. Due to Tony owning money to people like Rocco Pelosi and Mori Kibbutz, Luis must work for them because they think that they "own" Tony and therefore Luis too. At one point, Tony, Luis and Evan Moss, Tony's boyfriend at the time, go to a deal with a cook at the Platypus in which Tony buys diamonds. However, the diamonds were stolen from them by Johnny Klebitz and other members of The Lost, resulting in the death of Evan. Later, Luis manages to get a hold of them again after he takes them from a deal between Johnny, Niko Bellic, and Isaac Roth. In the meantime, Luis is also introduced to Rodislav Bulgarin, who he starts to work for, and who later claims that the diamonds are actually his. Some time after that, Niko kidnaps Tony's friend Gracie Ancelotti and makes a deal with Tony to trade her for the diamonds. The deal took place and Niko and his accomplice Patrick McReary were allowed to pick up the diamonds, though Bulgarin's men attacked them and one of them threw the diamonds onto a garbage truck. Bulgarin also attacked Luis and Tony, who managed to defend Maisonette 9 from the incoming Russians. Luis then went on the offensive and killed Bulgarin's right hand man, Timur, and later killed Bulgarin too, who blew up his own private jet with a grenade in a failed attempt to kill both himself and Luis. Tony and Luis were free men again after that.

Possible real-life inspirations
Gay Tony's influence over the Liberty City nightclub scene is mostly reminiscent of Peter Gatien, owner of the Limelight and other clubs. Like Prince, Gatien faced drug (1996) and tax evasion (1999) charges, and owned several nightclubs geared towards different crowds as investments. Unlike Prince, Gatien is a happily married heterosexual, and having been born in Canada, he was deported there after his drug charges and currently lives in Toronto.

Many elements also seem to have been taken from Steve Rubell, owner of the legendary Studio 54. Both were born in New York City (Liberty being a parody), and faced club raids and tax evasion charges since their early years of success. Their business models were also very similar, including a strict, trendy dress code (which Rubell would sometimes enforce personally). Both were homosexuals and habitual drug users, although Rubell kept it a secret, got diagnosed with AIDS in 1985 and died of hepatitis in 1989.

Maisonette 9 bears an uncanny resemblance to New York nightclub Bungalow 8 (see Maisonette 9 article for details).

LCPD Database information
Surname: Prince

First Name: "Gay" Tony

Age: 50

Place of Birth: Midwest

Affiliations: Linked to the Ancelotti Crime Syndicate

Criminal Record: Notes: *Nightclub entrepreneur believed to have links to organized crime, particularly the Ancelotti Crime Syndicate, through the DA's office has not manged to make any of the charges stick.
 * 1985 - Tax Evasion
 * 1996 - Possession Controlled Substance: Cocaine
 * 1999 - Public Lewdness
 * Often seen in the company of Gracie Ancelotti, daughter of the Crime Syndicate's head.
 * Recent raids have taken place to check the safety standards and underage admittance policy of his Algonquin clubs - Hercules and Maisonette 9.
 * Employs associate of Northwood drug dealers, Luis Fernando Lopez, as a personal bodyguard.

Trivia

 * Tony is depicted to be wearing a pair of purple and black designer sunglasses. However, its design varies slightly between GTA IV and The Ballad of Gay Tony, with minor differences in details.
 * In his only appearance in The Lost and Damned, "Diamonds in the Rough", Tony is not seen wearing the sunglasses, the only instance in the series when he doesn't wear any eyewear, except in the mission "Bang Bang."
 * After The Ballad of Gay Tony is complete, Tony makes no further appearances. He cannot be called (as his phone number is taken out of Luis's phonebook) or e-mailed and he never appears at either of his clubs. The reason why is unknown, as it is stated that he changed his mind about moving away where nobody would find him.
 * Tony Prince is the only character who doesn't wear a helmet when on the bike.
 * Tony is the only homosexual character in the game who helps protagonist in fights, and isn't afraid to shoot and can handle a gun. Despite the fact that Bernie Crane was a soldier and Evan Moss was a bodybuilder, they were always afraid of shooting and fighting. Tony also wanted to help Luis in his last fight with Bulgarin's men, because he always made a share in their fire fights, and called himself "seasoned veteran by anyone's standarts".
 * Tony's real first name is not mentioned in the games. It's only mentioned in GTA IV's website and the Xbox 360 manual of "Episodes from Liberty City".
 * Despite being 50, he claims to be 45 in the mission I Luv LC.

Mission appearances

 * GTA IV
 * Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend


 * The Lost and Damned
 * Diamonds in the Rough


 * The Ballad of Gay Tony
 * I Luv LC (Boss)
 * Practice Swing (Boss)
 * Chinese Takeout (Boss)
 * Bang Bang (Boss)
 * Blog This! (Boss)
 * ...Blog This! (Boss)
 * Frosting on the Cake (Boss)
 * Boulevard Baby (Boss)
 * Going Deep (Voice only)
 * Ladies' Night (Boss)
 * Ladies Half Price (Boss)
 * Party's Over
 * Departure Time (Boss)

External link

 * Tony Prince on Rockstar's site