by Ivana Trump
Then I felt a hand on my arm.
Now this? I thought. I did not like to be touched by strangers in bars. I spun around, ready to give the hand’s owner the commie death stare, and found a tall, smiling, blue-eyed, handsome blond man.
He said, “I am so sorry to bother you. My name is Donald Trump, and I noticed that you and your friends are waiting for a table. I know the manager and I can get you one fast.”
“That would be great,” I replied. “Thank you.” He went off to take care of it. I turned back to my friends and said, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we are going to have a table soon because of that man over there.”
One of the girls asked, “What’s the bad news?”
“He’s going to sit with us.”
Three minutes later, we had the best table in the place, and this Donald Trump sat down next to me. The waiter came and took our orders. None of the models were having wine or cocktails because we had an early call the next day. I was surprised that Donald didn’t drink, either. He asked for an iced tea. The meal was fine—I had chicken paillard, and he had a burger—and we made polite small talk, no funny stuff at all. He sensed correctly that flirting would not work with me and acted like a gentleman. I can spot a bullshit artist from three blocks away. My instincts told me that Donald was smart and funny—an all-American good guy.
As we were finishing our dinner, he disappeared from the table without a word, which was strange. We asked the waiter for the bill, and he said, “It’s been taken care of.” I thought, What’s going on? A man pays a $400 bill for nine people—very discreetly, which I liked—and then doesn’t expect something in return? Donald didn’t even say good-bye!
We talked about whether we should wait for him to return so we could thank him, or just leave. After ten minutes, we decided to go. We exited the restaurant, and at the curb, we saw Donald behind the wheel of a big, black Cadillac limousine. He’d run to his building, where he and his driver kept a limo, and returned to the restaurant to chauffeur us back to our hotel in style. Seeing him sitting in the driver’s seat with a silly grin on his face struck me as funny, and I started laughing. He saw my reaction and started laughing, too. We all piled into the limo, and he drove us to our hotel. I got out of the car and, before heading up to my room, leaned into the car window to give him a polite kiss on the cheek. I thought that was the end of that.
The next day, one hundred red roses arrived at the hotel with a note: “To Ivana, with affection. Donald.” The arrangement and the gesture were lovely, but I wasn’t a blushing virgin who’d never been sent flowers before. I was twenty-seven and had been hit on by countless men since the age of fourteen. I knew every seduction trick in the book.
I thought, He’s going to call me in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .
Ring. I picked up the phone and said coyly, “Hello?”
It was Donald, inviting me to lunch. I had the fashion show that afternoon, so he upgraded to dinner.
He took me to a private club with the not-too-original name Le Club on East Fifty-Eighth Street, a favorite hot spot of Mike Nichols, Roy Cohn, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Al Pacino, to name a few, and introduced me to the manager, a giant man named Patrick Shields. I was wearing sexy harem pants and a red blouse with a floral pattern; Donald wore a three-piece suit with a tie and pocket square. He looked like a smart businessman, which, I was coming to realize, was his look.
It was a slow Monday night, and it seemed like we had Le Club to ourselves. We sat on the upstairs balcony, had a nice dinner, watched the Olympics on TV, and talked about the athletes. It was the summer of Nadia Comaneci of Romania and her perfect ten, Princess Anne’s riding for England (she was the only athlete not forced to take a test to prove her gender), and Bruce Jenner’s dominance in the decathlon. Donald told me about working at a construction site with his father, Fred Trump, and how he commuted from Manhattan to Queens every morning. At the time, he lived in Phoenix House on East Sixty-Fifth Street and Third Avenue.
I listened to Donald and held up my end of the conversation, but I didn’t feel a special affinity for him. He was just a nice guy, a gentleman, someone to spend an evening with for easy conversation and a pleasant meal. I thought, If I never see him again, it’s fine. But Donald had other ideas. “Have dinner with me tomorrow,” he said when he dropped me off at the hotel. I couldn’t. Our flight back to Montreal left in the late afternoon. “Then have lunch with me.”
The guy didn’t quit! I agreed to meet him at another swanky restaurant, the ‘21’ Club on East Fifty-Second Street, known for its steak and the chorus line of cast-iron lawn jockeys on the balcony above the front door, for a quick lunch. It was our third meal in as many days. When we said good-bye, he kissed the back of my hand.
It was very chaste. Donald was the first American I’d dated, and he struck me as shy and respectful compared to European men, who would move in and go for it before the appetizers had arrived. Donald was aggressive about only one thing: getting my phone number. Honestly, I didn’t see the point. I was going home to my sort-of boyfriend in another city, another country. This Donald (he was “this Donald” before I dubbed him “the Donald”) had a city full of beautiful women to choose from in New York. I expected him to think about me for another day or two and then lose my number. But in the meantime, I gave it to him just to make him stop asking.
He called the day after I got home, and every other day for the next three months. It created some tension for me at home because I hadn’t told George about Donald, or Donald about George, so I breathed a sigh of relief whenever Donald called when George was out. I rushed him off the phone a few times when I heard the apartment door open and George shout out, “I’m home!” I found myself looking forward to hearing from Donald, and I saved up things to tell him about my day.
In October, I was walking the runway in a fur coat at a fashion show in Montreal, and I happened to notice a tall blond man in the audience. Our eyes met, and he smiled at me. Donald was at the show? He’d somehow found out about it and come to Montreal to surprise me. It made me slightly uncomfortable that he had information about me that I didn’t give him—a hangover from a communist childhood, perhaps—but I was also flattered. I had to stay after the show to do some photographs for the furrier. When it was over and I went outside, I half expected to find Donald waiting for me at the curb behind the wheel of a limo. But he was gone, like a ghost.
The strangeness of his appearance and subsequent disappearance started to have an effect on me. I thought about him more and more. He wasn’t in my heart yet, but I was starting to like him and felt intrigued by him. We had the same kind of drive and energy. Not a lot of people are like us, and we recognized those qualities in each other.
Around Christmas, he called to tell me that he’d like to take me on a vacation. “Beach or mountains?” he asked.
I said, “I always had white Christmases in my country. I’ll take mountains.” Donald suggested Aspen, and I agreed. I knew some people there, including my friend Tony, an Austrian skier from the old days who owned a ski school and a boutique in the center of town.
One day while we were planning our vacation, George answered the phone when I was out and “met” Donald unexpectedly. Later, when George confronted me, I rightly described Donald as a friend. We hadn’t even kissed or talked face-to-face since the summer. George and I had known each other for so long that he sensed there was something serious going on with Donald before I did. When I told him about our holiday rendezvous in Aspen, George took it well. Our friendship was too old and deep for jealousy. He gave me his blessing.
Donald arranged all the details: the first-class plane tickets and the reservation at a Chris Hemmeter–built luxury chalet very close to the ski lift with a breathtaking mountain view, a fireplace, mirrors on the ceiling, and a chinchilla throw on the bed. It was a very sexy chalet. I knew Donald had picked it for my benefit. I’m a realist, but I have a strong romantic streak and can see the
moon and the stars. Donald wouldn’t see the moon if it were sitting on his chest.
The suite had two bedrooms, by the way.
I hadn’t decided about where I would sleep yet, but after seeing the place, I made up my mind pretty quickly. I’d made a clear, conscious choice to be there with him. I could have said no to his dinner invitations, his constant phone calls, this trip—to everything—but I kept saying yes to all of it.
The first morning of our vacation, Donald asked me, “Do you know how to ski?”
I almost choked on my coffee. Somehow, in all our meals together and phone conversations, we’d never gotten around to talking about skiing. How was that even possible? It seemed like a major gap in my life story that he wasn’t aware of.
I shrugged and said, “I’m okay.”
He had little experience and took some lessons the first day. We hit the slopes together on the second day, and he saw just how “okay” I was. While watching me fly down the mountain, he decided that he was going to become as good a skier as I was. Even he would admit his skiing never reached expert level, but he improved as the sport became important to him—and eventually to the kids as well. Christmas in Aspen would become our favorite family tradition.
We had a blissful week of skiing, enjoying our chalet and each other. It was the most romantic time of my life thus far. He must have felt the same way, because on New Year’s Eve, he said to me over dinner, “If you don’t marry me, you’ll ruin your life.”
I might’ve laughed, and then I saw the expression on his face. I realized, Oh my God. He’s serious. We had chemistry, similar drives, but the truth was, we barely knew each other. We’d met only a few months ago, and for most of that time, we’d been apart.
I was turning twenty-eight the following month, and I knew I’d have to get married soon if I wanted to have children (I definitely did). Did I want to share my life with the Donald? I was falling for him, but was that enough? During my years as a model in Montreal, I’d had my pick of wealthy men, and they’d all left me cold with their entitlement and superior attitude. But Donald liked simple food and simple pleasures. Back then, he was working for his father and his income was modest compared to what he would be making several years later. He wasn’t offering me fabulous riches, only love, friendship, and a two-carat diamond ring. As an athlete, I’d learned to trust my instincts and to go with them without hesitation. My gut told me that Donald was trustworthy and that he’d be a good provider.
“My life is saved,” I said. “I’ll marry you.”
“How about February?”
Next month? “You’re crazy,” I said, laughing. I needed more than a few weeks to plan a wedding! I hadn’t met his family or told my parents about him. We had to figure out where we were going to live, for starters. There were too many things to do first. He agreed to wait until April.
For anyone counting, my move to New York would be my fourth relocation and third country of residence in seven years. From Aspen, I went back to Montreal; packed my bags; said a tearful good-bye to George, who remains, to this day, my oldest and dearest friend; and hopped another plane to New York to start yet another brand-new life.
-5-
MEET THE TRUMPS
I didn’t have a job, friends, or family in New York, and for the first few months, I wasn’t so sure I’d made the right decision. Rebuilding from scratch wasn’t ever easy, and I found New Yorkers not as warm and welcoming as Canadians. The city had its own mysterious customs and codes to figure out, but I was a fast learner and adapter. I knew I’d get the hang of it soon enough.
I started going out with Donald to his swanky hangouts, like Le Club, ‘21,’ Elaine’s, and Regine’s, restaurants and discos where rich and famous trendsetters dressed fabulously, gossiped about each other, drank, and did drugs. I had a glass of champagne or wine but turned my nose up at (and away from) cocaine, which was as abundant in New York as snow in Aspen. Donald never touched a drop of alcohol or any drugs.
A real test of my first months of being in Donald’s world was when I met his family at a big brunch at Tavern on the Green, a beloved New York institution at Central Park West and Sixty-Seventh Street. Donald gave me a rundown of who’d be there and the gentle warning that they’d all be checking me out, the new fiancée. I probably wasn’t what they expected for him. For all I knew, his parents had hoped he’d propose to an American from a wealthy family or a graduate of his college, the University of Pennsylvania (“What is this thing you call ‘Ivy League’?” I asked Donald once). Regardless, I would do my best to win them over. Having been an only child, I was curious what it would be like to be part of a big, close family.
The entire Trump clan arrived exactly on time. I learned early on that they were punctual to an extreme. For them, “on time” meant five minutes early. When Donald arrived in a boardroom, or took his seat on an airplane and the door closed, that was that. If you weren’t on the inside, the meeting or the flight would start without you. Donald once left Don Jr. standing on the tarmac for being five minutes late to the airport.
I think Donald was more nervous than I was when he introduced me to his family. I shook hands and smiled at his father, Fred, and mother, Mary; his sisters, Maryanne, who became a United States district court judge, and Elizabeth, an assistant to a banker; his brothers, Fred Jr., a pilot, and Robert, also in the family business; and all of their spouses and children.
We sat at a long table. I was the only one to glance at the menu. The waiter came over to take our orders, and Fred started off, saying, “I’ll have the steak.”
Mary said, “The steak, please.”
The sisters and brothers and kids said, “Steak, steak, steak . . .”
Was there an echo in the room?
Donald said, “I’ll have”—wait for it—“the steak.”
I love a big juicy steak as much as anyone—but at eleven a.m.? No, thank you. When the waiter got to me, I said, “Could I please have the fillet of sole?”
Next to me, Donald cringed.
Fred said, “No, she’ll have the steak.”
I said, with a smile, “No, I’ll have the fillet of sole.”
The poor waiter didn’t know what to do. He looked back and forth, and finally just left. Meanwhile, the table had gone dead silent. Nobody said a word for at least three minutes. What was going on? In the Trump family, was it a law that you had to eat meat at brunch?
I just kept smiling.
Eventually, someone started talking and the mood lightened. When the food arrived, Fred pointedly asked me, “How’s the fish, Ivana?”
“Delicious, thank you,” I said.
When we got home later, Donald asked, “Why didn’t you just have a friggin’ steak? Who cares?”
“No,” I responded, “if I just go along with everything he says from the beginning, your father is going to control our lives,” I said.
I understood the concept of a strong father being the leader of the family, but a man who insisted you eat food you didn’t want? That was too much. I didn’t fight my way out of Czechoslovakia and move to the greatest city in the world to be told what I could and couldn’t order at brunch. As it turned out, one mini-rebellion was enough. From that day on, Fred would give me little tests to see how far I’d go to challenge him. He’d point at the wall and say, “The wall is green. What do you think, Ivana?”
I’d reply, “That wall is not green, Fred. It’s beige.” Then he’d beam at me. Fred seemed to get a kick out of my contradicting him. Not many people challenged him.
What he did not like about me, however, was how I dressed. Compared to me in my tight bustier sheaths that showed off my décolleté and a lot of leg, Elizabeth and Maryanne looked almost like nuns in long-sleeved dresses with high collars and low hems. I, however, would go to a black-tie dinner at the Waldorf Astoria in a cleavage-baring, sleeveless Versace gown, and Fred’s eyes would pop out of his head.
“Donald, can you give Ivana some money so that she can buy a dre
ss with enough fabric to cover her arms?” Fred asked.
Donald would just laugh it off but suggested I dress a bit more modestly when I saw Fred. I said, “Okay, I’m going to make your father happy.”
At the next event that we attended together, I wore a halter dress that revealed my arms but had a high neck and went all the way down to the floor.
Fred said, “Ivana! You look so good tonight.”
“Thank you, Fred.” And then I turned around so he could see that the dress was backless and dipped all the way down to my G-string.
I heard him say, “Oh my God,” as I walked away laughing.
Mary, Donald’s mother, was a doll. She had a charming Scottish accent and the biggest heart in the world. She raised her five children by herself in their Queens home without the help of nannies, housekeepers, or cooks. I have no idea how she did it. All of the Trumps (with rare exceptions) were driven, ambitious people who believed in the American dream: that if you worked hard, you would succeed. None of them worked harder than Mary. Like my mother, Mary was sustained and supported by the obvious love and affection of her husband and the devotion of her children.
Mary was kind and patient; Fred was demanding and opinionated. The combination of tender and tough was an excellent parenting formula. Later on, when I became a mother, my style was to be like Fred and Mary rolled into one, both adoring and exacting.
Despite their busy lives and careers, the Trumps always made time for Sunday lunch at Mary and Fred’s in Queens. She did all the cooking herself—shrimp cocktail, turkey soup, and her signature meat loaf, which is so excellent, it’s served in the restaurant at the Trump Grill in Trump Tower to this day. Sometimes, the dining room conversations were impassioned and intense. Donald was very competitive with his siblings, especially Maryanne. They would try to top each other to make their points about politics and business—anything under the sun, really. As heated as their conversations could get, there was no ill will. Speaking up and shouting down was how the Trumps related to each other.