Ivana Trump and Jane Wyman

First Wives but not First Ladies

Ivana Trump, 10th Annual Angel Ball, 2007, Christopherpeterson, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The scene was a grand apartment in New York City, circa 1981.

I was sipping wine or maybe something stronger in the midst of a Manhattan power player party when a looming figure marched towards me. He introduced himself as Donald Trump.

I was a leggy young blonde, frankly catnip for the media-obsessed developer. He attempted to chat me up for a minute or two and then his wife beelined in my direction. I certainly had no interest in The Donald and turned my conversation to Ivana.

He stalked off.

I wasn’t going to presently admit where I was, but then again, I figure, why not. It was a different era.

I hereby confess that this meeting took place in the Fifth Avenue apartment of the pre-Fox newspaper tycoon Rupert Murdoch, then married to his charming and elegant second wife Anna.

I was a freelancer; my beat for Murdoch’s The New York Post was interviewing television actors.

I found Ivana both pretty and bright. In her heavy Mitteleuropean accent, she spoke lovingly of her little boy.

Soon she was off, probably to run interference with some other comely young girl being hit upon by her husband.