Louis Winthorpe III

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Louis Winthorpe III, or "Louie", is a fictional character from the movie Trading Places, played by Dan Aykroyd,

Louis Winthorpe III, a graduate of Exeter and Harvard, is a respectable senior employee of Duke & Duke, a commodities brokerage in Philadelphia. Winthorpe manages the company for its managing partners, the brothers Randolph and Mortimer Duke. He is greatly humiliated through the machinations of the Dukes, who copnspire to ruin his life to settle a petty, $1 wager. Winthorpe is falsely accused of theft and drug dealing, and thrown in jail. He is fired from his job, and in short order he loses his home, his possessions, and his money. As a result of this, his friends and his fiancée (Penelope Witherspoon) turn their backs on him. The speed with which this happens drives Winthorpe to crime, culminating in his rampaging through the Duke & Duke Christmas party (dressed as Santa Claus) with a loaded gun. However, he is supported by a prostitute named Ophelia (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) who takes pity on him after she was unwittingly recruited as part of the Dukes' campaign to sully Winthorpe's reputation. Winthorpe is later vindicated with the help of the clueless street hustler whom the Dukes also manipulated, Billy Ray Valentine, played by Eddie Murphy.