THE LADY AND THE TRUMP
Vicki Woods on the diverging fortunes of Ivana and Donald
HOW rich is rich? How broke is broke? Have I more money in the bank than Donald Trump?
I once wrote a piece for Tatler about the English obsession with horses. It turned into a piece about money, too, and lots of sound, old money at that. I had to trail round all the horsy places, Badminton, Smith's Lawn, Goodwood, Bond Street sporting galleries. But it was at Tattersall's I saw the light. A little foal came plunging into the ring and a woman behind me said, `Oh, what a pretty little filly. Isn't she lovely. Look at the spirit in her.' A man's voice, in a throaty French accent, said, 'Let me buy herr for you."Oh, darling, no; you mustn't,' said the woman, and as I turned to gawp at this thrilling exchange, they kissed, rather passionately. Both were in their late forties and clearly not married to each other. The filly's price, as the couple clinched, rose to £70,000; I think my total earnings from all sources in that year were £17,000 or so. I thought then that if I ever needed a second, wealthy husband and still had all my teeth, I'd look for him at Tattersall's. Or Goodwood, or Ascot.
Mrs Ivana Trump — strictly Mrs Donald Trump, of course — is in Britain this week for Ascot. I'm not saying that she's there to look for a new husband, but I can think of worse places to hang around looking blonde and fragile in a Givenchy suit. Mrs '1 insist on being arrested by a member of the officer class.' Trump certainly has all her teeth, and they are as even, white and sparkling as any other wealthy American's. She also has a slightly narrower jawline than God gave her, slightly higher cheekbones and slightly fewer wrinkles. All in all, it's a pretty face.
And here it is at Ascot, smiling out from You magazine in an Ascot hat. Its owner dined at Claridge's with a clutch of dukes who had advised Mrs Trump about decora- ting the 'English suites' in the Trumps' New York Plaza hotel. The Plaza is Mrs Trump's life-work. Mr Trump bought it for a bargain price because it was a bit ratty and unfashionable, and Mrs Trump re- fashioned it to such dazzling effect that it's now the toast of New York, and 'worth' $400 million. When she became its chair- man her salary was said to be a dollar a year and 'all the dresses she can buy'. While Mrs Trump dazzles London and Ascot, her estranged husband battles through the financial pages 'teetering on the edge of bankruptcy'. My, but there's strong language flying about. 'Notices of default', tail-out packages', 'fears about financial soundness', 'debt-ridden empire', `rocky', 'shaky' — what is all this? Last time I was in New York, Donald Trump was still master of the universe. That was in February and here we are and it's only June. Mr Trump was the biggest financial genius the world has ever known, he was the artist of the deal, a powerful public person, a potential President. Wasn't he? I seem to remember, aeons ago in February, that the only 'rocky' thing in Mr Trump's life was his marriage to Ivana, because of his naughty midlife crisis and a roving eye. I don't know what Mrs Trump knew then about Donald's business problems, because when I asked her about him she said to me, 'No, no, no, no! I cannot speak about der Donald!' (That's what she calls her husband.) 'I cannot talk about my private life. I can talk about my work, der Plaza, der beauty routine, der manicure, der pedicure and der closet.'
But a barman at the Shamrock Bar on Sixth Avenue summed up Mr and Mrs Trump's marital difficulty for me. He was crisp: 'Donald got bored, right? Married 12 years, hell, a guy's gotta get bored. I'm not saying he should play around, but say he plays around. Ivana hasta read all this crap — the blondes, the Marla Maples. She says OK, buster, I had enough, you're outta here. So he pulls out the pre-nuptial agreement, right? and says she gets 25 million bucks and some house upstate. The guy's worth a billion! He says a deal's a deal. I say he's a jerk! She has his kids for him, she brings em up good, she don't play around, she hasta get more than a lousy 25 million. He shoulda gavea the Plaza.'
Mrs Trump and her lawyers and most of America agreed with the barman. The figure of $25 million was scorned — then — as a footling amount. 'She can't even do her nails with that.' Ivana was reported to have asked for $150 million and the Plaza. The Plaza is 'worth' $400 million, I had read, and the Trump Shuttle, in fact a loss-leader that only an egomaniac would buy so that he could rename it — Maxwell Shuttle or whatever — was 'worth' $350 million. The yacht was 'worth' $40 million. All these huge figures added up to Mr Trump's apparent former worth of $1.7 billion. Now one can read about much littler sums: like the missed interest pay- ment of $19.8 million. That's real money, or the lack of it.
I've met Mrs Trump once or twice, but it's hard to tell whether she's clever about money, or just clever about being a rich man's wife. Can she read the bottom line? Does she know how many bucks make a million? She has worked for some time in her husband's employ. Before she took on the Plaza, she ran the Atlantic City casino (not the vast new Taj Mahal, the one that needs to make $1.3 million a day before it breaks even, but the one before that, the Trump Castle). Her husband's minions at the Castle were scathing about Ivana's contribution there, implying that while Donald performed 'the art of the deal' down to the last chief executive detail, Ivana merely 'chose wallpaper' and 'changed the drapes' and threw her weight about over minor things like kitchen staff. But who knows? The marriage was already rocky then, and Donald's minions work for Donald.
I did think Mr Trump knew how many bucks made a million. His book, The Art of the Deal, is completely baffling to someone who subscribes to the Micawber theory of economics. Out of cowardice, I only ever spend nineteen-and-sixpence. Mr Trump's income is £1 one year and maybe £10 the next but he spends 25 guineas on another casino. The wheel just kept spinning and there weren't any other shareholders to pop up with portable calculators to ask awkward questions.
If someone is out on as many limbs as Mr Trump is out on, calls for cash are the death-knell. The very first call for cash back in February was a brisk demand for $150 million — from the scorned, blame- less and beautiful Mrs Trump. I hope she was equally astute at Ascot.
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