Ivana Trump, the former president’s first wife and a partner in creating his gilded and larger-than-life figure in 1980s New York City, has died aged 73.
Trump was born in former Czechoslovakia, and became a model and competitive skier. In addition to raising the former president’s 3 oldest children, Donald Jr, Ivanka, and Eric, she is also an author, designer, and executive who runs one of her husband’s Atlantic City casinos, Lau Trump Radio and manage the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan.
In a social media post on Thursday afternoon, Donald Trump said he was “deeply saddened” to share the news that Ivana had passed away at his home in New York City.
Ivana Trump with children Ivanka, left, and Eric, and ex-husband Riccardo Mazzucchelli in October 1993 © AP
“She is a wonderful, beautiful and wonderful woman who has had a wonderful and inspiring life,” he added.
Ivana Marie Zelníčková was born and raised in communist Czechoslovakia, the daughter of an electrical engineer. Accounts differ as to whether she was actually a replacement on the country’s Olympic skiing team in 1972. A favorable marriage allowed her to obtain an Austrian passport. She later moved to Canada, where she worked as a ski instructor and model, while improving her English.
According to an account in the former president’s memoirs, Trump: The Art of the Deal, the couple met at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and married the following year in New York City. (Other accounts claim they met in New York City.)
“I dated a lot of different women back then, but I was never seriously in a relationship with any of them. Ivana is not someone you date by accident,” Trump wrote, saying his then-wife “is almost as competitive as I am.”
Ivana Trump arrives for amfAR’s 2006 Anti-AIDS Cinema event in France © Reuters
After they married, Donald assigned Ivana, a lover of pink marble, to design the interiors of the properties his company, the Trump Organization, was developing. In addition to enhancing Trump’s looks, the aspiring Czech immigrant was also credited by People Magazine as having created a determined social rise in Manhattan for her Queens-born husband.
Trump’s 14-year marriage exploded in spectacular fashion after Donald married the younger Marla Maples. Their divorce, which ended in 1991, became a tabloid concern. Ivana is said to have gone with $14 million, as well as a house and an apartment.
Gossip columnist Liz Smith calls it “the biggest story I’ve ever seen that doesn’t matter – besides Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton”.
Despite the obvious buzz, Donald celebrated his ex-wife’s wedding to Italian actor Rossano Rubicondi at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2008. She reciprocated the favor by backing his presidential campaign.
In her post-Donald life, Ivana sold jewelry and cosmetics on the Home Shopping Network and wrote best-selling books. In a 2017 memoir, Raise TrumpIvana quipped: “My version of helicopter parenting is bringing the kids to work with me in the Trump helicopter.”
In a recent recollection of her 1980s hotel days, posted on her daughter’s blog, Ivana shied away from her flashy reputation to portray herself as a hard-working woman.
“As a beautiful, very wealthy woman, I was stigmatized to stay at home, dress for guests, go out to lunch, support charities here and there,” she wrote, “but that is not the case. must be all i want. . “
