The character is an enigmatic nouveau riche millionaire who lives in a luxurious mansion on Long Island where he often hosts extravagant parties and who allegedly gained his fortune by illicit bootlegging during prohibition in the United States.

[5] Fitzgerald based many details about the fictional character on Max Gerlach,[1] a mysterious neighbor and World War I veteran whom the author met in New York during the raucous Jazz Age.

[1] Like Gatsby, Gerlach threw lavish parties,[6] never wore the same shirt twice,[7] used the phrase "old sport",[8] claimed to be educated at Oxford University,[9] and fostered myths about himself, including that he was a relation of the German Kaiser.

[13] As the embodiment of "latest America",[14] Gatsby's rise triggers status anxieties typical of the 1920s era, involving xenophobia and anti-immigrant sentiment.

Canadian-American actor James Rennie originated the role of Gatsby on the stage when he headlined the 1926 Broadway adaptation of Fitzgerald's novel at the Ambassador Theatre in New York City.

After the publication and commercial success of his debut novel This Side of Paradise in 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda Sayre relocated to a wealthy enclave on Long Island near New York City.

[21] While striving to emulate the rich, he found their privileged lifestyle to be morally disquieting, and he felt repulsed by their careless indifference to less wealthy persons.

[5] Flaunting his new wealth, Gerlach threw lavish parties,[6] never wore the same shirt twice,[7] used the phrase "old sport",[8] claimed to be educated at Oxford University,[9] and fostered myths about himself, including that he was a relation of the German Kaiser.

Mirroring Gerlach's background, Fitzgerald's fictional creation of James Gatz has a Germanic surname,[13] and the character's father adheres to Lutheranism.

[13] Consequently, scholars have posited that Gatsby's socio-economic ascent is deemed a threat not only due to his status as nouveau riche, but because he is perceived as an ethnic and societal outsider.

[41] Fitzgerald's editor, Maxwell Perkins, convinced the author to abandon his original title of Trimalchio in West Egg in favor of The Great Gatsby.

[49] In 1907, a 17-year-old Gatz traveled to Lake Superior,[46] where he met copper tycoon Dan Cody whose yacht Tuolomee[i] was anchored in Little Girl Bay.

[57] During infantry training at Camp Taylor near Louisville, Kentucky, 27-year-old Gatsby met and fell deeply[j] in love with 18-year-old debutante Daisy Fay.

[63][64][65] After the Allied Powers signed an armistice with Imperial Germany, Gatsby resided in the United Kingdom in 1919 where he briefly attended Trinity College, Oxford, for five months.

[77] With dreams of amassing immense wealth, a penniless Gatsby settled in New York City as it underwent the birth pangs of the Jazz Age.

[o] It is speculated—but never confirmed—that Gatsby took advantage of the newly enacted National Prohibition Act by making a fortune via bootlegging and built connections with organized crime figures such as Meyer Wolfsheim,[p] a Jewish gambler who purportedly fixed the World Series in 1919.

[106] While driving Gatsby's car on the return trip to East Egg, Daisy struck and killed—either intentionally or unintentionally—her husband's mistress Myrtle standing in the highway.

[112] Also present at the funeral were bond salesman Nick Carraway and Gatsby's father Henry C. Gatz, who stated his pride in his son's achievement as a self-made millionaire.

[117] "The last two pages of the book," Mizener wrote in his 1951 biography The Far Side of Paradise, "make overt Gatsby's embodiment of the American dream as a whole by identifying his attitude with the awe of the Dutch sailors" when first glimpsing the New World.

[122] The term "Gatsby" is also often used in the United States to refer to real-life figures who have reinvented themselves; in particular, wealthy individuals whose rise to prominence involved an element of deception or self-mythologizing.

[123] Brant had changed his name from Bornstein and said he was "a man who turned his back on his heritage and his family because he felt that being recognized as Jewish would be a detriment to his career".

[124] Inspired by the predatory mining practices of his fictional mentor Dan Cody, Gatsby participates in extensive deforestation amid World War I and then undertakes bootlegging activities reliant upon exploiting South American agriculture.

[124] Gatsby conveniently ignores the wasteful devastation of the valley of ashes to pursue a consumerist lifestyle and exacerbates the wealth gap that became increasingly salient in 1920s America.

[124] For these reasons, Keeler argues that—while Gatsby's socioeconomic ascent and self-transformation depend upon these very factors—each one is nonetheless partially responsible for the ongoing ecological crisis.

[129][130] Various writers such as the American playwright and critic Terry Teachout have likened Gershwin himself to the character of Gatsby due to his attempt to transcend his lower-class background, his abrupt meteoric success, and his early death while in his thirties.

[127] The first individual to portray the role of Jay Gatsby was 37-year-old James Rennie, a stage actor who headlined the 1926 Broadway adaptation of Fitzgerald's novel at the Ambassador Theatre in New York City.

[143] The film's producer Richard Maibaum claimed that he cast Ladd as Gatsby based on the actor's rags-to-riches similarity to the character: "I was in his house and he took me up to the second floor, where he had a wardrobe about as long as this room.

[144] Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times believed that Redford was "too substantial, too assured, even too handsome" as Gatsby and would have been better suited in the role of antagonist Tom Buchanan.

[140] In a 2011 interview with Time magazine prior to the film's production, DiCaprio explained he was attracted to the role of Gatsby due to the idea of portraying "a man who came from absolutely nothing, who created himself solely from his own imagination.

Gatsby's one of those iconic characters because he can be interpreted in so many ways: a hopeless romantic, a completely obsessed wacko or a dangerous gangster intent on clinging to wealth".