by Ivana Trump
I shrunk down and so did Donald. He looked at me across the table and he said, “And you thought I was bad!”
If that wasn’t awful enough, later on that night, Frank insisted we all go down to the piano bar. When the elevator opened in the lobby, a just-married American couple—she was in her wedding gown and veil, and he in his tux—saw Frank and freaked out. She said, “Oh, Mr. Sinatra, we love you so much . . .”
Frank looked over his shoulder at his bodyguards and said, “Get rid of the bums.”
The look on their faces! The couple was just destroyed. He could have said hello and shaken their hands. They didn’t even have a camera. But he didn’t because he was a mean bastard. I never hired him or spoke to him again.
• • •
I left my position at Trump Castle on a high note in 1987. My thousands of employees lined up on either side of the casino floor, cheering and applauding. I had no idea they were going to give me a standing ovation on my way out of the building! I was very touched and grateful to them. It warmed my heart that they felt the same way about me and I almost cried. But I had a new mountain to climb. Donald had given me my toughest job yet, appointing me president and CEO of the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue between Fifty-Eighth and Fifty-Ninth Streets from 1987 to 1991. My commute was a lot easier, only a few blocks, but the work was even more intense. The Plaza was a New York landmark, known for its elegance and old-world charm. Thus far, my specialty was modern construction, glass and chrome, but the new Plaza had to be respectful of its long history. I managed a staff of 1,400 people and kept them on their toes. Sometimes, I’d stand at my window in Trump Tower and watch the entrance of the Plaza through binoculars. If luggage was left outside for too long, or there was garbage out front, I’d call over there and get it taken care of immediately. The Plaza hosted hundreds of major fashion shows, weddings, black-tie parties, and business conferences every year. I presided over all of them, and dressed fabulously doing it.
When I moved to the Plaza, it was a lot easier to bring the kids to work with me, and they were in my office constantly. Ivanka roamed the Plaza at will—the ballrooms, kitchens, and restaurants. The staffers called her a modern-day Eloise.
She particularly enjoyed joining me on site inspections. I’d block off one floor per week and take it out of business. No bookings at all for seven days. Then I’d go room to room with the vice president of housekeeping, maid, electrician, painter, and plumber. In room 901, for example, I might notice a crack in the paint, some peeling caulk around the toilet, mismatched hangers in the closet. Every room and common area was gone over with a fine-tooth comb, and everything I said was recorded. Was the paint fresh? Were the corridor sand ashtrays cleaned and groomed? I’d re-teach the maids how to turn down the bed, fold and hang the towels. If a maid or maintenance staffer didn’t make the changes I asked for, they got a warning. After three warnings, they were gone. I walked through the hotel for three hours every day, and Ivanka was right there at my side, soaking it in.
For lunch, I took her to the Palm Court, where ladies in hats and gloves had high tea. I’d take her to catering and we’d ask the chef to present an upcoming wedding menu and service for us. They’d put together the whole table, from the china pattern to the flowers, and Ivanka and I would sample the food, from appetizers to dessert, and talk about what to keep and what to change.
Far more important than which napkins go with what flatware were workplace morals and etiquette. Ivanka learned, by watching me interact with people, to be polite always and treat everyone with the same level of respect. It didn’t matter if I was talking to the dishwasher or a vice president. We were on the same team and proud of it. I never asked anyone to do something they couldn’t do, but I expected the best from everyone. The very first thing I did was to expand and improve the employee cafeteria. I gave them beautiful new uniforms and upgraded their equipment, from vacuums to computers. I started my job by making my team happy. They would have killed for me, and I for them.
On the wall of my office at the Plaza, I had a framed check in the amount of one dollar, written out to me by Donald. When it was announced that I was going to run the Plaza, a reporter asked him about my salary, and he said, “One dollar and all the dresses she can wear.” He had no idea how many dresses I could wear in a year—or how much they cost! He meant it as a joke, but people accused him of being sexist. The truth is, I wasn’t working for a salary. The Trump Organization was, and is, a family company, and I was part of the family. We were partners in marriage and in business. Whatever we had, we shared. That was my principle, and I framed and hung the check as a symbol of that. Anyone who doubted my leadership or hotelier skills and thought I got my jobs just because of my relationship with Donald should have walked for one day in my stilettos. I earned my positions and the respect of my staffs every day as a point of pride.
Back to those dresses . . . My job included looking glamorous at all the weddings, fashion shows, and events I hosted, and that did require quite a number of haute couture dresses. I went to Fashion Weeks in Milan, Paris, London, and New York every year, before and after the divorce. In the eighties, my father would meet me in Paris and he’d be my date at the shows and after-parties. People would look at me dancing with a very handsome older man, and tongues would wag. Ivanka started coming along with me when she was six or seven. She might not remember, but she saw Calvin Klein, Ungaro, Todd Oldham, and Versace collections while sitting on my lap. In Paris, twenty-five of my girlfriends and I would stay at Hôtel Plaza Athénée, have lunches and dinners, and go to the shows every season. Eight-year-old Ivanka would sit next to socialite Nan Kempner; Pat Buckley, the wife of William F. Buckley Jr.; or Jerry Zipkin, and talk about Dior and Givenchy.
In the early nineties, soon after the divorce, the kids; my second husband, Riccardo; and I spent a month cruising around Greece on his yacht and visiting Aristotle Onassis’s island, Skorpios, and we stayed for a few weeks in a villa in Lefkada, next to Corfu. We hadn’t gone public as a couple yet and were trying to keep it quiet. He decided he wanted tuna sandwiches for lunch one day, so I went into a tiny store to buy a few cans. While I was paying, the grocer looked at me and said, “You look like that wealthy American woman. Ivana.”
I said, “I wish I had her money!” and ran out.
The villa was lovely, with a maid and butler. I brought my own sheets, posters for the walls, napkins, and cutlery. I had twenty pieces of luggage to take with me from Greece to France to see the haute couture collections. Somewhere along the way from Athens to Frankfurt to Paris, my luggage got lost. Lufthansa had no idea where any of it was. Ivanka, ten at the time, and I were supposed to be at a Valentino show in two hours, but we had nothing to wear. Thankfully, Valentino came to my rescue and gave me a dress. For Ivanka, I took the Versace blouse and skirt I was wearing on the plane, rolled up the sleeves and waist, and pinned the garments to fit. As we were leaving our hotel for the show, Gianni Versace saw us, came over, and said, “I didn’t know I was making children’s clothes!”
• • •
I left the Plaza in 1991, and at forty-one, I went into business for myself. Divorce didn’t break my spirit. If anything, I was determined to create a great life for us by making my own money, showing the children that we could survive anything, even the dismantling of our family. I started a new career that allowed me to work from home, at least part of the time, and continued to involve the kids in my professional life.
I opened Ivana Inc., with offices at 501 Park Avenue, the arm of my business that pertained to my books, advice columns, commercials (Pizza Hut, Got Milk?, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, to name a few), appearances, and lectures. The other arm of my business was the House of Ivana fragrances, clothes, and jewelry that sold like wildfire on home shopping networks in three countries.
A lot of people have asked me about the home shopping channel process. Let me break it down for you:
First, I worked with designers, picking out fabrics and making sk
etches. Every month, we’d make a hundred samples. Racks of clothing and boxes of jewelry would come to my home or office for my personal inspection. I’d make sure every button, every zipper, was exactly the way I wanted it, and if not, it went back out to be changed. I was on top of every detail. It was like working at the Plaza and scrutinizing the table settings, but with fabric and jewels.
Then three buyers from three networks would come to see a once-a-month presentation of the samples. First, the Canadian buyer would come, and she’d say, “I’ll take five thousand of these rings and five thousand of these tops,” and so on. Then the American buyer would come and place even bigger orders, and lastly, the British buyer. The United Kingdom was a tough market. European women like to pick out their scarves at Hermès and don’t want to buy something on TV. After taking a risk on their first purchases, though, my customers learned to trust the quality of my products, especially my jewelry, clothing, and face creams. The hardest sell? Fragrance. It’s very personal. People need to smell it on their own skin. After the presentations, I’d send the buy orders to the factories. Once the products were made, they went through network quality control.
Finally, I’d sell the merchandise. The first weekend of every month, I’d be at HSN in Tampa, Florida. I’d leave New York on Thursday morning and was on the air Thursday evening starting at six p.m. I’d sell for two hours, take an hour off, go back on the air for an hour, take an hour off, etc., until midnight, or later. And then I’d do it again on Friday and Saturday. By Sunday, I couldn’t stand the sound of my own voice. Monday through Wednesday were devoted to approving new collections. On the second weekend of every month, I’d fly to Canada for another six-hours-on-air, three-days-in-a-row schedule at TSN. The third weekend, I went to London QVC to do it all over again. The fourth weekend was free.
I kept up this cycle of designing, manufacturing, and selling at a breakneck pace for nineteen years. What can I say? I like to make money. I could sell $3 million in a weekend. The price points were low—say, from $49 for a blouse to $199 for a suit. Priced to sell, and man, did they ever. I’d move five thousand bottles of perfume in an evening. My sales record was $675,000 in one hour. If I didn’t sell $200,000 an hour, it was a disappointment. I absolutely had something to prove. I could earn a fabulous living on my own, using just my first name.
“Ivana” was on every garment and bauble, so the quality had to be excellent. I couldn’t go on TV and sell something I didn’t believe in. Some celebrities do their infomercials and say, “Isn’t this face cream fantastic?” when they haven’t even tried it or wouldn’t be caught dead using it. Not me. I used my products and wore my merchandise. My fellow home shopping pioneer presenter Joan Rivers felt the same way. She loved her brands and wore her jewelry and makeup every day. Joan lived only a couple of blocks away from me on the Upper East Side. I rooted for her when she appeared on The Celebrity Apprentice and was thrilled when she won. She was a great, funny woman. I miss her.
While House of Ivana was getting off the ground, Ivanka watched the whole soup-to-nuts process: how a lizard pin, for example, went from idea, to sample, into mass production, and finally onto the lapels of a hundred thousand women around the world. She weighed in at the designer presentations and gave her “It’s cute!” or “Not feeling it” opinions, which I took very seriously.
She saw me branding for years and years back in the days when TV shopping and celebrity lines were new concepts. While I was still on the air, Ivanka, then twenty-six, launched her own jewelry line. I would go on my shows selling silver hoop earrings for $49.99, and she’d sell a similar pair—hers were crusted in diamonds—at her boutique on Madison Avenue for $38,000. My brand was mass-market and hers was luxury. Different markets, but we shared a commitment to quality. She knew not to put her name on a product she didn’t believe in completely. Would she have been so brand savvy if she hadn’t grown up watching me create my lines from scratch? Who knows?
* * *
IVANKA
Unlike a lot of parents who are passionate about their professions but keep home and career separate, Mom incorporated us into every aspect of her life. Not many kids sat on the floor of their mother’s office while she was on the phone, tagged along on site inspections, got to go with her to lunch with her friends, or greeted guests when she entertained. She led by example and taught me how to conduct myself in all these realms. Some of my friends’ parents tried to instruct their kids about business or socializing by sitting them down for a lecture. Mom allowed us to flourish and learn from watching her, listening to her conversations, and seeing how she handled herself.
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-15-
EVERYTHING BUT THE CAT
I’m a dog person, through and through. My childhood dog, Brok, was the big brother I never had. I can’t imagine a childhood without a pet of some kind. From animals, people get a pure, unconditional love. When a dog wags his tail and licks your face, all the stress and pressure of life goes away. How can you not love a dog that acts like he’s won the lottery for life just because he sees you walk through the door?
I’ve told you about Chappy and his deep love for my chinchilla coat. He had an equal dislike of Donald. Whenever Donald went near my closet, Chappy would bark at him territorially. Despite their issues with each other, Donald never objected to Chappy’s sleeping on my side of the bed.
The kids adored Chappy, of course. Even when he smelled bad.
My mother, Ivanka, and I used to take long walks in the woods with the dog when my father and the boys were fishing. One day, we came upon a beautiful little creature as it ran out of a bush. It had a silky black coat, and we thought it was a mink or an otter. When the animal saw us, it stopped, and then turned around. I noticed the white stripe on its back, and then the skunk lifted its tail. I said, “Run!” My daughter, my mother, and I sprinted away and got far enough away not to be sprayed. Chappy wasn’t so lucky. He came home a few minutes later smelling like death. As clean and well groomed as he was, Chappy had very thick, curly black hair, and the stench clung to every strand of it. The kids and I gave him a bath in two gallons of tomato juice, which made him smell like death that’d been rolled through an Italian restaurant. Chappy was not allowed to sleep on my fur coats or sit on the couches for a few weeks. Other than that, he didn’t seem to mind his skunk encounter at all. In fact, he always sniffed around that bush, like he was hoping to see his smelly friend again.
Dodo, a Yorkie, came into our lives after the divorce. Riccardo and I were dating, and he was getting to know the kids. He went to a pet store on Lexington and Sixty-Second Street, picked out the tiniest, cutest little puppy in the store, and brought Dodo home in the pocket of his coat. He said to Eric and Ivanka (Don was away at boarding school), “I’ve got a surprise for you.” He put his hand in his pocket and held out Dodo, who was small enough to sit on his open palm. The kids went nuts! They were delighted and immediately started to fight over who got to hold the puppy. Chappy was an old man by then, but he and Dodo got along very well and they kept each other company. Dodo was just a sweetheart, full of love and energy. He wasn’t very bright, but that made him even more adorable. I thought of Chappy as the wise one. Dodo ran around in circles.
Chappy lived to be sixteen. In his final years, he put on a lot of weight. He could hardly walk and had lost control of his bladder. He started to sleep in the basement laundry room in Greenwich because he couldn’t walk up the stairs. It was heartbreaking to see him struggle with everything. We loved him, but it was time. I took him to the vet and Chappy was put to sleep. We dug a hole on a hill at the edge of the property near a very old headstone—it was so old and faded, I have no idea whose stone it was; it could have been from two hundred years ago—and put Chappy to rest. At the burial, we all cried and were upset. It wasn’t my style to turn his death into a teachable moment. It was just a time to be sad and to appreciate how much he meant to us, to be grateful for the memories, and then to let him go. We said our good-byes at t
he grave site and then we went back inside for lunch.
• • •
Along with the dogs, we had tropical fish, turtles, hamsters, a rabbit that smelled horrible, and a pair of parakeets. We took the birds with us to Greenwich on the weekends in their cage. After one drive, I carried the cage into the house and noticed that one of the parakeets was lying stiff on the bottom of the cage. I didn’t want the kids to know, so the next day, I went to the village pet store in Greenwich and bought a look-alike replacement. Ivanka and Eric had no idea. Don took one look in the cage and said, “That is not our parakeet!”
The only time I said no to a household pet was when the kids wanted a cat. They shed and scratch furniture. No way was I going to allow one of them anywhere near my damask couches! I think cats are beautiful, but at the end of the day, I’m a dog person.
One year, Don or Eric brought home a white mouse from school at the end of the year and begged me to let him keep her. Over my dead body would I allow a rodent in Trump Tower! “The hamsters are rodents, too!” Don said, as we’d had some of those. He was absolutely right. Hamsters are rodents and I allowed two of them to live in a glass tank in Trump Tower. For whatever reason, hamsters seemed okay, like pets, while mice were not okay. Maybe it has something to do with the long twitchy nose, hairless pink tail, and glowing red devil eyes.