Even Ivana says that she often picks up a newspaper, opens it, sees herself staring out of the page and says to herself, ”Oh, no! Not again!
Another Ivana story!”
Then she thinks, ”OK. What did I do now? Are they going to take a shot at me? Because you never know what it is. Sometimes it is a total make up.”
In the last few weeks or so, Ivana Trump`s face and decolletage have been on the covers of People, USA Today, Vanity Fair (”Ivana Be a Star!”), Lear`s (”The Czech Bounces Back”), Penthouse (”Life, Love, Sex, and Her New Book”). Before that, it was Vogue and New York.
And who can count the newspapers?
She`s also been on Oprah and Sally Jessy Raphael. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Live with Regis & Kathie Lee, Jenny Jones, E! Entertainment and Entertainment Tonight, Larry King Live and Larry King radio. Roy Leonard. And, she delightedly tells you, every local TV or radio call-in show in every one of the 15 cities that she`s toured touting ”For Love Alone,” (Pocket Books, $22) her new novel that is ”absolutely, definitely”-she says-not the story of her life with Donald Trump, even though it is about a ravishing Czech skier who marries a rich lout and everybody knows the rest of the story even if they haven`t read the book.
Sometimes, the writers and interviewers do take a shot at her. Sometimes two or three or a dozen shots. Sometimes they gush. They all ask the basics and get the same answers:
– The Settlement: $25 million, according to The Donald; a $10 million lump sum according to Ivana`s assistant, Lisa Calandra, as well as $4 million when she vacates their Manhattan triplex in Trump Tower by next March, $650,000 a year for child support and alimony, and their $3.7 million, 45-room Greenwich, Conn., estate.
– Why did you write the book? ”Why not?”
– Are you going to re-marry? ”I am in love. I have Riccardo
(Mazzucchelli) in my life. He is a real gentle man. I don`t need a man for money, for career or to start a family, I need a man for friendship and love.” Here in Chicago, she added: ”I think I said that somewhere else.”
Sitting in her luxurious suite in Chicago`s Mayfair Regent, wearing a short white wool dress with black velvet trim by Carolina Herrera (she`s in the book, too), Ivana Trump is ready to start a blitzkrieg of Chicago-tea downstairs with a roomful of ladies and gentlemen of means, one book-signing at Kroch`s & Brentano`s, another at Waldenbooks, an intimate cocktail party for more than 200, interviews galore-a blitz that will result in thousands upon thousands saying, ”Oh, no! Not another Ivana story!”
Do you ever tire of seeing yourself in the media, Ivana?
The hype parade
There`s a ripple of laughter, almost like a high-pitched tinkling of bells that comes as a surprise from a woman of 43; yet, it`s not too surprising when the woman is wearing pink-pink lipstick and a towering blond coif with long, curling wisps around her face.
The laugh obviously reflects a feeling of being flattered, as well as memories of the good stories. But, she adds quickly, ”some are totally outrageous. When there was the Kennedy rape trial, a story said I was sitting in Au Bar and I was not even there. One story in a Globe or an Enquirer says, `Ivana says she has the best lover she ever had,` and I would never, never speak to a paper like that.”
”There`s just so much publicity you can generate,” said Chicago restaurateur Gordon Sinclair, after Ivana`s departure, ”when you are starting with so little. She is either going to have a quick death,” he said of Ivana`s publicity mill, ”or she`s going to be in a movie.”
Amazed at the major top-drawer turnout for the party that socialite/
novelist Sugar Rautbord had hosted for Ivana during her stay here, Sinclair said of Trump: ”I think she`s making the most out of this and having a good time doing it.”
Attempting to understand the ”dither” Ivana is causing around the country, Sinclair concluded, ”She is obviously filling a void in our pop culture. We have nobody else to talk about. No royalty. Nobody in the White House. No Tammy Faye and Jimmy. Ivana`s perfect. For now.”
Line `em up
The sun is bound to set on Ivana`s 15 minutes in the glare of the celebrity spotlight. Even assistant Calandra says, ”I know saturation when I see it.” She claims there are only two more magazine pieces scheduled
(excerpts from the book in Good Housekeeping and Ladies` Home Journal), and after 5 more cities on the tour, ”that`s it.” The End, she waves with her hands.
For this country, at least.
”On June 1, we start with the U.K. Two weeks. London, Manchester, Dublin, Scotland,” she trails off, possibly wondering, ”Why not
Czechoslovakia?”
Then there`ll be a respite. Ivana will devote the next year, maybe even a year-and-a-half, to writing Book Two, continuing with the life and loves of Katrinka. ”But that one will concentrate on Katrinka`s friendships with women, not with men,” cautions Ivana.
But, respite or not, one day last week when Ivana hit town, hundreds of Chicagoans, suburbanites and imports from Wisconsin, Indiana and other surrounding states were delighted to be forestalling the demise of Ivana`s 15 minutes by participating in numerous events.
”The way she worked that room was amazing,” said Saks Fifth Avenue`s fashion director, Nena Ivon, referring to Ivana`s ”eye contact and few words” with every one of the 90 men and women who had paid $15 for the Mayfair tea and a closeup of the fledgling author.
They came ”to see what she looks like,” said Hazel Barr, adding, ”even people who don`t remember who Donald Trump is do know who Ivana is. And, isn`t it sweet how he follows two steps behind her, like Prince Philip,” added Barr, referring to The Boyfriend Riccardo Mazzucchelli, the wealthy Italian engineering mogul whose piercing, pale eyes enthralled every woman whose hand he kissed (and who ”has enough confidence for the both of them,” according to one of the enchanted).
Is it real or is it plastic?
Ivana won`t talk about anything pre-divorce relating to the man she now calls ”Donald Trump.” She can`t. The gag order (Ivana may not discuss life with her former husband without his permission as part of the divorce agreement) went back into effect just prior to her arrival in Chicago. But any of Ivana`s New York friends are glad to relate stories about how The Donald always said, ”there can only be one star in a family,” and everybody knew who The Star had to be.
”I did not get suddenly re-born when the divorce was over,” she says adamantly during an interview. ”I didn`t suddenly get my confidence, my education, my business sense, my wit and my whatever. It just did not suddenly happen. You either have it or you don`t,” she concludes, and the implication is clear that maybe during those 13 years of marriage, it was The Donald who was enforcing his own type of gag order.
There are other things she won`t talk about.
The Vanity Fair story is one, though she obviously likes the goofy-looking cover with the ingenue party dress and glitter glasses because she was shown on TV carrying it around.
Her plastic surgery is another topic that`s taboo. Both Oprah Winfrey and Jenny Jones gently danced around the subject on their TV shows, with Oprah doing a superb job of being wide-eyed while talking about how incredibly
”different” and ”younger” Ivana looks now-while showing pictures of the pre-enhancement-surgery-Ivana on the TV screen.
One woman in the Jones audience came right out and asked whether Ivana had had cosmetic surgery, and Ivana answered the same way she answers reporters: She doesn`t want to talk about it but says she believes in it if a woman needs it. The Vanity Fair story openly refers to surgery and even quotes Donald mentioning ”plastic breasts.”
Ivana faces the ”how young you look!!!” comments with equanimity and a straight face, saying it`s the new hairdo, the lighter lipstick, the elimination of the blue eyeshadow, ”exercise, lots of water and lots of sleep.”
She`ll answer questions, but doesn`t volunteer too much of anything about the three children (Donald Jr., 14, Ivanka, 10, Eric, 8).
She does have custody of the children; Donald has visiting rights every other weekend, plus six weeks vacation time, and sees the two younger children each morning before they go to school. As far as all the press about the divorce and the interview in Penthouse, she says she ”shelters them” from things she feels they shouldn`t see. How a 14-year-old boy away at boarding school might face questions from his buddies about his mother being in Penthouse is ignored.
(Regarding the Penthouse affair: Ivana didn`t pose for any photos for the magazine. The cover and inside photos are runway shots taken during the Thierry Mugler fashion show in Paris last fall. Ivana says she agreed to ”a Q-and-A, a straight interview. When they told me they were going to use pictures, I could not figure. . . .But, I have to laugh. That magazine is going off the stands like crazy. Men don`t know that I`m no centerfold inside!”)
Heroine to all
There is no question that Ivana has fans of all ages spread across the country. During her appearances in cities, book sales range from 300 to 1,000, averaging 400 to 500. The book went on the The New York Times best-seller list-No. 6 in fiction-over the weekend.
The calls and letters she receives are, apparently, adoring and sympathetic.
”The women look up to me. They ask what to do. I say pull yourself together and take care of yourself. Take care of your children. They ask, `How did you survive? Did it hurt?` Of course it hurt. But you cannot lie down and die. There is a life after husband.”
This is the same reaction she gets from the people who stand in line waiting for her to autograph her books. At Kroch`s, those first in line had waited more than an hour for a glimpse and autograph.
”Donald Trump made a bad choice when he gave up Ivana,” said John DeYoung of Oak Forest, buying the book for his wife.
Even the worldy types who attended the Rautbord party were amazed at their own reactions to the charismatic Trump.
Hard-core sophisticate and international traveler, Judy Niedermaier, founder and president of Neidermaier, Inc. said, ” This woman has conquered every possible obstacle. Nothing will stop her, no matter what comes in her path. Whether she takes care of things through plastic surgery or through solid determination, she wants to be at her best and it`s that fight that has captivated us and that we can relate to-even though we don`t model ourselves after her.”
When she was asked if she could have just one more magazine cover, just one more TV interview, she demurred, indicating covers were not something she went after.
Then the light went on.
”Just one more thing? A story in the Wall Street Journal. Not about me. Not about my private life. That`s private. A story about my accomplishments. In the Wall Street Journal.
”That would be the big league.”
