Real Wolf more of a junkyard dog
Jordan Belfort's wife was right: there is no such thing as bad publicity. Belfort, you should know by now, is the self-styled Wolf of Wall Street in Martin Scorsese's tale of lust, drugs and greed.
A real-life penny stocks pusher with an oversized ego, he eventually went to jail for running "boiler room" share scams, then on to write his memoir.
Now he has been catapulted to fame thanks to Scorsese and some brilliant acting by Leonardo DiCaprio.
I am the journalist who in the movie wrote the 1991 "hatchet job" on Belfort and his respectably named but disreputable Stratton Oakmont outfit. My character - I was a Forbes reporter when I wrote the profile - gets a few seconds' play, followed by a scene in which Belfort is infuriated by my story.
I had described him as sounding like a twisted version of Robin Hood, who takes from the rich and gives to himself and his merry band of brokers. That was rather charitable because he was also probably fleecing widows and orphans.
In the film, his wife tries to calm him down, telling him to look on the bright side - a leading publication had taken notice of him, after all.
Sure enough, greedy young brokers who read how one recruit could earn $100000 in commissions in one month lined up for jobs at Stratton.
The article is a detail compared with the celebrity bestowed by Hollywood. With Oscars potentially in the offing, I suspect the redeemed Belfort's new business - he is now a motivational speaker who sells something called "the straight line persuasion system" - is set for a spectacular ride.
The Wolf of Wall Street is mostly based on a real account of Belfort's life, true. But it also includes some fiction. The name of the movie, for example, is the title of his book, but not one given to him at the time by Forbes or anyone else I know of.
There was also far less business glamour to Belfort and Stratton than the film suggests. The company was based in suburban Long Island, not Wall Street. And Belfort had started out as a meat and seafood salesman before he went bankrupt and switched to stocks.
He seems to have a delusional streak. He had agreed to an interview back then, apparently expecting the article to portray him as a Wall Street mogul. Because the Securities and Exchange Commission was already investigating Stratton, I assumed the boiler room would soon be out of business. It would take until 1997, however, for it to be closed down.
Belfort later served 22 months in jail for securities fraud and money laundering. He was ordered to pay $110-million in restitution .
He has since been accused of not fulfilling his obligations, but a move to hold him in default of his payments to victims was withdrawn in October last year amid attempts to resolve the dispute.
The film, however, has little time for Belfort's victims. Although not quite a glorification of its subject, it is not an indictment.
Viewers are more likely to be turned off by the debauchery than his financial fraud.
Belfort is clearly pleased with the product, splashing promotions of the film all over his website (which, unsurprisingly, depicts him as a star).
He is described as having once run "the most dynamic and successful sales organisations in Wall Street history" before succumbing to "some of the traps of the high-flying Wall Street lifestyle".
Taking "invaluable lessons from the mistakes he made", Belfort has learnt that you need ethics in business and re-emerged in motivational speaking as "a globally recognised potent force behind extraordinary business success".
Perhaps a sequel is in the making.
Sort of sorry - but not ashamed
The former stockbroker whose career is dramatised in The Wolf of Wall Street has denied that he cost people their life savings and insisted he only targeted the rich.
In his first interviews since the release of the Oscar-nominated film, Jordan Belfort told CNN: "I don't know anyone who lost their life savings."
He was responding to Bob Shearin, one of his victims, who said the film glorified Belfort's lifestyle.
Shearin said: "The harm that was done to people around Belfort and to the small investors, and what that meant - you see none of that."
Belfort responded: "That doesn't make it right, but let's be accurate.
"We were calling wealthy people and you weren't losing people's life savings. That wasn't the model. If it happened once, I'd be devastated to find out."
Between 1989 and 1997, his firm used a "pump-and-dump" scheme that left customers' portfolios worthless.
Diane Nygaard, a lawyer who represented several of Belfort's victims, accused Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Belfort in the film, of not having "a clue as to the heartache this con man cost so many hard-working Americans".
Belfort admitted he had never met any of his victims, but stressed: "No one has sought me out. I feel terrible about what happened. [But] I'm not going to live my life in shame - I think that's a toxic emotion. I live with remorse." - © The Daily Telegraph, London