Ivanka Trump was born and raised in communist Czechoslovakia but would later find a way past the Iron Curtain to end up amongst high society in capitalist America. This is the timeline of her life before and after being married to Donald Trump.
1949 – Ivana Marie Zelnickova is born in Gottwaldov, Czechoslovakia to an engineer father. Her family is Catholic.
Age 6 – She starts skiing competitively.
Age 12 – She enters a national training program for skiers and starts competing in tournaments across Europe.
Age 18 – She enrols in Charles University in Prague to study German and English and continues to ski. She starts dating George Syrovatka.
Age 19 – She and her boyfriend George plan to defect from communist Czechoslovakia.
Age 21 onwards – She continues her education and graduates with a masters degree in Physical Education.
Age 22 – She marries her first husband, Austrian Skier, Alfred Winklmayr which gets her an Austrian citizenship that allows her to leave communist Czechoslovakia. But as a consequence she can no longer see her parents. Her boyfriend George defects to Canada and opens a ski boutique.
Age 23 – She receives her Austrian passport.
Age 24 – She divorces from her husband who had moved to Los Angeles to teach skiing. She gets a new boyfriend but he is killed in a car accident. She then moves to Canada where she lives with her father’s sister in Toronto, before moving to Montreal to live with her boyfriend, George. She works as a ski instructor before beginning to model.
Age 27 – She goes to New York and meets then aspiring real estate mogul, Donald Trump.
Age 28 – Ivana marries Donald Trump and begins working for her husband’s company as Vice President of Interior Design. Her first son, Donald Jr. is born.
Age 31 onwards – She is a member of the elite New York social scene and begins holding executive positions at the Plaza Hotel in New York, and Trump’s Castle Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.
Age 32 – Her daughter, Ivanka is born.
Age 35 – Her son, Eric is born.
Age 39 – She becomes a US citizen.
Age 41 – Her father dies from a heart attack. The family goes on vacation to Aspen, Colorado, and she finds out there that her husband is having an affair with model Marla Maples. She separates from her husband and will eventually win $20m in the divorce settlement.
Age 43 – She publishes her first novel, For Love Alone.
Age 44 – She publishes her second novel, Free to Love.
Age 46 – She publishes The Best Is Yet To Come: Coping With Divorce and Enjoying Life Again. She marries Italian businessman Riccardo Mazzucchelli. She begins writing for an advice column called Ask Ivana for the Globe.
Age 47 – She has a cameo in the movie, The First Wives Club.
Age 48 – She and Mazzucchelli separate. She begins dating Roffredo Gaetani.
Age 49 – She buys 33% of Croatia’s second largest daily newspaper.
Age 50 – She sets up Ivana Haute Couture that manufactures clothes, fragrances and jewelry, and Ivana Inc. to handle her public appearances and media work. She launches her own lifestyle magazine, Ivana’s Living In Style.
Age 52 – She contributes to an advice column for Divorce Magazine.
Age 53 – She meets Rossano Rubicondi, aged 30.
Age 56 – Roffredo Gaetani dies.
Age 57 – She appears on her own dating show, Ivana Young Man.
Age 59 – She marries Rossano Rubicondi on Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida estate. Her daughter is her maid of honour. She appears on The Apprentice as a boardroom advisor.
Age 60 – She divorces Rubicondi. She says it’s because they want to live in different cities. They remain friends.
Age 61 – She appears on England’s Celebrity Big Brother TV series. She sues Finnish fashion company Ivana Helsinki for using her name without her permission. She stops writing the advice column for the Globe.
Age 62 – She launches a line of wines in partnership with Legends Wines.
Age 64 – She helps promote the work of artist, Giovanni Perrone and holds an opening for him in NYC.
Age 68 – She releases her autobiography, Raising Trump.
2020 – Ivana is presently 71 years old.
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Photographs: Bert Morgan, Christopher Peterson, Manfred Werner. Compiler: Sy
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