I awoke this morning with Ivana Trump's drawing room filling my mind. I spent so much time there I could draw it. And how many times have I run up and down that staircase they say killed her? There are other steps in her beautiful house but I watched her zip up and down those steps to see her secretary Dorothy Curry.
We found ourselves all smiles and polite at the coffee dispenser backstage at a Givenchy fashion spectacular in Paris. Surrounded by naked top models hopping in and out of lushness. Laugh we did, Ivana was wicked with the jokes. A couple of weeks later at the Oscar de la Renta show in Bryant Park in Manhattan, here comes Ivana with her dark and broody model future husband. I love sitting in the front or second row where the models emerge because it's magnifico to see the white hot designers fussing with the tiniest finishing touches to define the look. A dab at the hair here and a nonchalant nudge of firebrand fabric. Oscar was a picture to watch doing this. Another sublime individual. Naughty.
Through that fleeting wonder Ivana and her beautiful young person sat slightly in front of me. She turned and looked at me. I said, the required, "Hi", never imagining that she'd recognise me. "Oh, Ivana", I went on, "... you remember me?". With a charming snap back she said, "That's why I'm smiling at you!" I did not miss a trick and all of that Australian bravado came bursting out of me. I said these words to one of the wealthiest women on Earth, "Ivana, do you want a job?" Without a moment's pause she wrote a huge Ivana scrawl on to her programme, her personal numbers and passed it back to me. So I rang and the fun began. I wanted to do a show with the wealthy ladies of le world on Ivana's yacht scooting about on the French Riviera. You know, all trellis and roses.
I spent squillions of minutes with her in that deluxe brownstone house of hers in the Upper East Side. She splayed with perfect lighting across her chaise longue. "You know Ian, the Paris couture rooms have perfect models of my body so that I don't have to go there and stand around ... I'm very big at the top, see". When only the breast will do.
She told me that there are only a handful of ladies world-wide who can afford 250,000 euros for a dress. I asked her where in the hell could you wear one, "There's a group of us who have dinners in New York … we wear our latest couture, to compete".
Honestly there's too much to tell, but I liked her so much for her fantastic barbs and tossed over the shoulder jokes. "The Donald" [she named him that], "Has no idea that I own his name in Washington, I think I can use it one day". With a cackle that subject was done. She controlled The Donald. She really did and I have a nagging belief that she was the one who decided all of the big financial deals and when he lost her, he lost the Trump smarts.
As I was leaving one day, just about to go down those stairs, "Ian, Ian come back I want you to see something". She was brandishing a video cassette. After a bit of groaning and complaining, she got the video up and running. "I sell my fashion jewellery on cable. People call in live and buy so much of everything. Watch me carefully ... see my eyes going down. I am looking at a computer board that tells me how much I've sold. When it gets to a million I go home".
Then she showed me her flower arranging room in a crevice beneath an upper level staircase glimmering with astounding white. "I do my own flowers every morning you know?". There I was thinking the massive jardinieres were filled by serfs. I was very wrong, every morning at 5 am, refrigerated trucks pull up and thousands of dollars of glorious floral wares fall into the hands of the lady with the snips. Try as you might you will be unable to imagine the floral expanse of the Ivana mansion.
I went to the Victoria's Secret show at the famous Armory building on Park Avenue. All of New York's wealth and glamour sat on bleachers that looked down on the famous catwalk ... and their eyes were fixed on the audience arrival point at the end of that runway. I blithely walked across into the centre of the space and to my thrill Ivana came from the other side. She threw her arms around me and gave me the world's biggest kiss. In front of all of New York and ... The Donald.
Bogey and Bacall never had it so good.
Soon after I was at a fashion show at Studio 54 with Ivana. The picture you see above is true history. The second after this photograph was taken Donald burst- in pointing at me. He lashed out with, "Why is he doing a TV show with you … why you? I should have a show. That's it I'll get my own show and I'll use it to run for president". And, indeed he did. It was the beginning when the Earth tilted just a bit.
Here's a real power email I thought you'd enjoy seeing. A few months later Ivana clearly wanted to see me in Europe; I was in Australia. Please look at how sublimely the out-of-sight-rich give you an order.
Hope all is well with you and that 2003 will be a prosperous one!
No doubt you will be attending the Paris fashion shows and I just wanted to let you know that Ivana will be there as well.
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