Ivana Trump, the glamorous Czech-American businesswoman whose culminating marriage to Donald J. Trump in the 1980s made them one of the quintessential New York power couples of that era, has died Thursday at his home in Manhattan. She is 73 years old.
Mr. Trump announced her death in a statement on Truth Social, the conservative social media platform he founded. No other details are provided.
“It is with great sadness that I inform all of those who loved her, including many, that Ivana Trump has passed away at her home in New York City,” he wrote. “She is a wonderful, beautiful and wonderful woman who has had a wonderful and inspiring life. Her pride and joy are her three children Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric. She is very proud of them, just as we are all very proud of her. Rest in peace, Ivana! “
New York City police are investigating whether Mrs. Trump fell down the stairs at her home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, just off Fifth Avenue near Central Park, according to two law enforcement officials. knowledgeable about this issue. One of the officials said there was no sign of forced entry and the death appeared to be random. A spokesman for the city’s chief medical examiner said the office would investigate the death.
Mrs. Trump captured almost as much media attention as her husband, and together they helped define the 1980s as the era of excessive flamboyance among the social elite, an image Mr. used to promote his turn as an outsized TV personality before the 2016 run for the White House.
Although Mr. Trump often brags about his exceptional business prowess, Mrs. Trump played a key role in building his real estate empire, which began shortly after they married in 1977. .
Often described as a detail-oriented and workaholic, she has worked with her husband on some of his original signature projects, such as the development of Trump Tower in Manhattan and the Trump Taj Mahal casino in the City. Atlantic, NJ
She was vice president of interior design for his Trump Organization and managed one of his most prized properties, the Plaza Hotel, while raising their three children, Donald Jr. ., Eric and Ivanka.
The couple’s 1990 divorce, partly due to Mr. Trump’s affair with Marla Maples, whom he later married, provided tabloid fodder for weeks. In a demise, Mrs. Trump accused Mr. Trump of raping her, though she later said she did not take the word literally.
The divorce made Mrs. Trump a heroine to shunned wives everywhere – she even had a cameo in the 1996 film “The First Wives Club”, in There she told a group of disgruntled divorced women, “Don’t get mad, get everything!”
She has also used her entrepreneurial prowess to great effect. She has developed lines of clothing, jewelry and beauty products that she promotes through stores such as Home Shopping Network and QVC. She invests in real estate, domestic and European, and writes a number of books, including “The Best That Hasn’t Happened: Coping With Divorce and Enjoying Life Again” (1995) and most recently “Raise Trump” (2017), a memoir about her marriage to Mr. Trump.
Ivana Marie Zelnickova was born on February 20, 1949 in Zlin, Czechoslovakia. Her father, Miloš Zelnícek, is an electrical engineer, and her mother, Marie (Francova) Zelnickova, is a telephone operator.
A gifted child with sports, Ivana was particularly adept at skiing, competing against the Czech children’s national team, an experience that allowed her to see at least some of the world beyond the small town. mine.
She attended Charles University, in Prague, and received her master’s degree in physical education in 1972.
She was briefly married to Alfred Winklmayr, an Austrian ski instructor, which she later called a “Cold War marriage”, which allowed her to obtain an Austrian passport and move to Canada. She said that they never lived together and the marriage “broken down” in 1973.
In Canada, she worked as a ski instructor and as an advertising model for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal. While working at a reception in New York, she met Mr. Trump, 29, who had just begun plotting his rise to the top of the Manhattan real estate world.
The two married nine months later in a ceremony presided over by Norman Vincent Peale, Protestant author and religious figure.
Trump’s first major project was the redevelopment of the aging Commodore Hotel, adjacent to the Grand Central Terminal in Midtown Manhattan. Mrs. Trump, who was then working on her interior design license, jumped in with him, at first overseeing the plumbers and electricians and then, near the end, giving a verdict on ” every pillow, every furniture and every copper post,” she told Vanity Fair in 1988.
The hotel reopened in 1980 as the Grand Hyatt, a flashy marker of a new decade of rapid growth and material excess, qualities that would become synonymous with the Trump brand.
Mrs. Trump soon became an equal, if behind-the-scenes partner in Mr. Trump’s business. She emphasized luxury: It was she who chose the pink and sparkling bronze marble of Trump Tower, on Fifth Avenue. Although she insisted that her husband was the boss, it was also clear that she was one of his closest confidants, such as advising him on his decision to start a casino business in Atlantic City.
She exerts even greater influence over the burgeoning Trump family. In the introduction to “Raising Trump,” she brags about Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric and doesn’t say a word about who did what in their upbringing.
“I believe the credit for raising such wonderful children belongs to me,” she wrote. “I was responsible for raising our children before we divorced, and I had sole custody of them after the separation. I make decisions about their education, living, travel, childcare, and allowances. When each of them finished college, I said to my ex-husband, ‘This is the finished product. Now it’s your turn.'”
The couple used their wealth to tap into the New York social scene but ended up projecting themselves beyond it, into the TV and reading material of Americans far from the buildings. Midtown’s skyscrapers. They became the fodder for gossip columns, People magazine profiles, and even “Saturday Night Live” sketches.
And when the couple flourished in the late 1980s, with an estimated fortune of $3 billion, she firmly quelled rumors of her husband’s impending White House run.
She told Vanity Fair in 1988: “Definitely not in the next ten years.” There was so much work to do. We’ve invested in this town nearly a billion dollars. We can’t just deposit and go to the White House. It will go down the drain in a second. It’s too young, too new. But in ten years, Donald will have just turned fifty-one years old – a young man. “
A complete obituary will be available soon.
Maggie Haberman, Andy Newman and William K. Rashbaum contributed reporting.
