Pink and white marble, damask everywhere, shiny brass and shiny gold leaf. Ivana Trump, who died Thursday, was much more than the first wife of American businessman Donald Trump. In the fifteen years that she was married to ‘The Donald’, as she liked to call her husband, she left an important mark on his real estate empire and indirectly on his later run for the presidency.
As vice director in charge of interior design, she laid the foundation for Trump’s image of pumped-up excess, clean appearances and bling that he would later so successfully peddled in his career as a reality TV star and politician. “If anything could be set in gold or upholstered in damask, it would be that,” she wrote in Raising Trump, one of her memoirs. “It was the eighties and my taste was that of exaggerated glitz, glamor and drama.”
Power torque
Born Ivana Marie Zelnícková in 1949 in what was then Czechoslovakia, she escaped communism by emigrating to the US. She met Trump as a model in New York, with whom she married in 1977 and especially in the 1980s a so-called power couple formed. The couple could not be beaten from the tabloid press, where Ivana also attracted plenty of attention. “In fifty years we will be like the Rockefellers,” she boasted regularly.
Though of less wealthy background, Ivana moved through the New York elites much more smoothly than her clumsy and clumsy husband. Charming and refined, she opened doors to higher social circles that would otherwise be open to Mr. Trump had remained closed,” brought The Washington Post Friday in memory.
In ambition she was also not inferior to Donald. She worked hard, had a keen eye for detail and combined motherhood of three children (Ivanka, Don Jr. and Eric) with the vice directorship. In the latter role, she was closely involved in the creation of some of Trump’s most emblematic projects, such as the Trump Tower and Plaza Hotel in New York and the Taj Mahal casino in the gambling resort of Atlantic City.
Their divorce dominated the front pages of the New York tabloids for months in 1992. After Ivana found out that Donald had been having an affair with younger fashion model Marla Maples (alongside escapades with many other women), a legal battle broke out, partly fought through the scandal press. Ivana accused him of rape, among other things, although she later explained that this should not be understood “in the literal or criminal sense”.
Donald had his bestseller a few years earlier The Art of the Deal in which he spoke highly of his own negotiating tactics. But Ivana managed to get a lot in the fight divorce. In spite of his multi-adjusted prenuptial agreement, she received $14 million, generous child support and a much-loved family home in Greenwich. She also got to keep all the gifts he ever gave her.
‘Great and inspiring life’
After her divorce from ‘The Don’ she had successive partners, all of Italian descent and the last a lot younger than herself. Even after the divorce, she always remained the mother of his three oldest children for Donald, of whom especially Ivanka and Don Jr. occupy a prominent place in the family dynasty as the apple of his eye and heir. During his campaign and presidency, they spoke to each other and she told him – in vain – that he should behave “a little calmer”.
Read also Who will lead the Trump dynasty: Don Jr. or Ivanka?
On Thursday, Ivana was found at the bottom of the stairs of her New York apartment. There were no signs of burglary or violence and the police are investigating whether she died after falling down the stairs. Her ex announced her death on Thursday via his Twitter substitute Truth Social: “She was a beautiful, beautiful and wonderful woman, who led a great and inspiring life.”