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Now It Can Be Told--Ivana Is Quite a Sport

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

<p>Ivana Zelnick Winklmayr Trump Mazzucchelli gets a good laugh from her jet-setting: “What is happening, I’m either in the air or on the air”--selling House of Ivana clothes on TV shopping networks--”so I practice how to dash on the airport. It’s always such a scene, you have no idea.”

Probably not. Hell, we had no idea that Ivana, 48, talks as fast as she does.

“I guarantee you that gate, it never fails, it’s always last one. I never get 1A. I get 100A,” said the Czechoslovakian-born Ivana. “I get furious. And I go from the limousine and I run on the high heels and the VIP services is puffing and can’t keep up with me.”

Question: What’s the drill once you land?

A: You know, I’m not bragging but I don’t have problem areas. I just maintain my body. Some ladies they have a little tummy, some ladies might have a big bottom. I really don’t. I’m lucky in that way.

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Q: Do you do anything?

A: You know what I do? In the hotels I try to walk up the stairs rather than take elevator. Then I do my 50 sit-ups and 50 push-ups in the morning and the same at the evening. No. 2, I burn a lot of calories because I have tremendous energy. My stick is going on the three speeds--fast, faster and faster-plus.

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Q: You still love to ski?

A: Any time when I can, I ski. And water sport--I just adore it. I have a yacht, I have a 105-footer, a gorgeous yacht, and I do a lot of scuba diving, motor skiing and snorkeling.

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Q: No tennis or golf?

A: In the Palm Beach area, somebody gets me for the tennis lessons but, you know, not to be able to practice all the time, on a scale of 1 to 10, maybe I’m lousy 5. And golf, I just hate. It’s so slow, I’m dying and I’m good at it--I have a good eye-hand coordination. I just can’t stand it. I don’t do sports I cannot do in high heels, put it that way. I’m kidding, but actually people don’t think but I’m very sporty person.

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Q: I want to hear what you eat, Ivana, starting with breakfast.

A: I don’t like breakfast because it slows me down. I like to have that frisky feel, you know, in the morning. I have only coffee. That’s it. Traveling, I might have two eggs, soft-boiled egg, maybe a yogurt, but I just don’t like the breakfast. The lunch, I don’t have time to sit down for the lunch. I have herbal teas during the day but then I celebrate at evening.

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Q: That’s when you finally sit down?

A: The evening I have nice meal and a good wine. This is the time I can enjoy it.

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Q: What do you like to eat?

A: I love the salads, vegetables, fish and chicken. Steak, I adore steak. I really don’t order it that often and not because I want to go on a diet. It’s just if I eat the steak I want a good one, you know? So, I really live a lot on the chicken and on the fish. I love scallops, lobster, crabs, oysters, clams and shrimps.

You know, we’re on a boat in the summer and my boys and Ricardo, my husband, catch the fish every morning for lunch and every afternoon for dinner. So the whole summer we are very healthy. And Ricardo’s a very good cook. You know he’s Italian. He’s excellent cook. He’s great with the fish and he’s fantastic with the pastas.

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Q: And I hope you appreciate his cooking.

A: I know. I encourage his talent, darling, and I like to cook, too, but let him take cooking. I like to go and get the vegetables and pick up nice mushrooms. I like that part very much.

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Q: Do you ever splurge? Dessert? Champagne?

A: I tell you I’m very lucky because I hate sweets. Can you imagine? I’m probably one woman in the world, I don’t like the sweets. I love champagne. And I love the wine. I don’t drink the alcohol. I don’t like the vodkas. Since age of 2 we had either water or a spritzer--wine and water. You know, that’s typical in Europe.

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Q: Is it true you worked in a factory when you were in high school?

A: I went to shoe factory in Zlin, town where I was born, to make a little extra money in the summer for ski equipment and I ended up on one of those assembly lines.

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Q: Do you remember what you did exactly?

A: I remember that I had to put the heel on. Now, if you sneeze you miss the two shoes. If you look like you’re going to go to the bathroom, they would go “no” but eventually, an hour and a half, they would stop the line and then everybody sprinted to the bathroom or to get something to eat. It was awful. And so I said, “Over my dead body I will do this ever again.”

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Guest Workout runs Wednesdays in Life & Style.

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