Ivanka Trump: Role Model

This Trump is fired up

Donald's daughter Ivanka is no party girl; like her dad, she's all business

BY TANIA PADGETT
Newsday Staff Writer

January 25, 2007

There's something surprisingly refreshing about Ivanka Trump. She's smart, cultured, tasteful and unfailingly polite. So what gives?

In these "rich girls behaving badly" times, one would expect the 25-year-old daughter of Donald Trump to be seen boozing it up at nightclubs, arriving at red-carpet affairs sans underwear or peddling some sordid sex tape.

But that's not The Donald's little girl.

"Some people party one way," Ivanka Trump said diplomatically. "I party another."

Can you hear it? The deafening roar of approval from the parents of teenage daughters everywhere. Finally, a celebutante who doesn't worship at the altar of drunken debauchery. Still, Trump's brainy, responsible good-girl image has its detractors.

Some pop culture experts wonder if she will be able to add anything to "The Apprentice," which is in its sixth season and has flagging ratings despite her father's ongoing, publicity-stunt-fueled fight with "The View" co-host Rosie O'Donnell.

Meanwhile, others question if she has what it takes to follow in her father's gigantic dealmaking footsteps. To the latter, Trump gives a resounding yes. Real estate, after all, she says, is in her blood.

"Everyone loves her"

As for the partying, the former model and real estate mogul-in-the-making just doesn't have the time. She's vice president of development and acquisitions for the Trump Organization, where she helps oversee multimillion-dollar real estate projects in Las Vegas, Chicago and even Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. She's not much involved in Trump on the Ocean, the multimillion-dollar catering hall and restaurant, which her father is building on Jones Beach State Park's boardwalk. Still, she thinks it's a great project. "I think Long Island is great," said Trump, who visits friends in the region whenever she can. "It's stunningly scenic and beautiful. What's not to like?"

The telegenic Trump joins her father in the boardroom of NBC's "The Apprentice," which for the first time is being shot in Los Angeles and currently has 15 candidates (two have been fired, one has quit) who are vying for a coveted position in one of her father's companies. (The show airs Sunday nights at 9 o'clock on Ch.4.)

Donald Trump, not surprisingly, thinks his daughter is doing a great job. "She's a great gal," he crowed. "Everyone likes her style, her beauty. Everyone loves her."

Nevertheless, Ivanka Trump, who previously guest-starred in season five, has a tough act to follow. A graduate of the Wharton School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania, she replaces Carolyn Kepcher, a veteran businesswoman who added kick to the show by skewering apprentice hopefuls with her finely honed barbs. Kepcher was fired from her position at Trump National Golf Club and "The Apprentice" last year after The Donald found her focus lacking. Ivanka's brother Don Jr., 29, also has joined the show, replacing real estate lawyer George Ross.

"I'm having fun," Ivanka Trump said about her tour so far. "This is terrific."

Still, don't let her pleasant-sounding remarks fool you.

Trump tore to shreds Martin Clarke, an Atlanta-based attorney who was born in Amityville and graduated from Adelphi University, in the first episode as he tried desperately to save himself from getting fired.

"I don't see you fitting in with our company," she said crisply. "I don't see you working side by side with me and my father." And even though Clarke protested. Trump was adamant. "I don't like the way you talk ... the way you project yourself.... I feel everything you say is rhetoric ... [there is] no hunger, no passion, no fire."

Clarke was one of four Long Islanders who made it onto the show.

The others include: Marisa De Mato, an attorney, from Centereach; Angela Ruggiero, a hockey Olympian who lives in Oyster Bay; and Jenn Hoffman, a publicist, who grew up in Huntington.

Smart and level-headed

People also saw her feistiness when she defended her father more than two weeks ago to Meredith Vieira, co-host of the "Today" show, when Vierira asked Trump about his feud with O'Donnell.

O'Donnell had "instigated" the bitter verbal exchange and had been "bullying people for a long time," Ivanka Trump told Vieira.

Her image for the most part is that of a smart, level-headed businesswoman.

Ivanka, Trump's daughter with first wife, Ivana, first caught the public's eye when she started modeling at age 16. She later was featured in the 2003 documentary "Born Rich," profiling the lives of wealthy kids. In the film, Trump shines as a grounded business student while many of her peers came across as boorish, dissipated brats.

Still, even the well-put-together Ivanka has had a tour in the gossip pages. There have been stories about her taking her bathing suit top off as a teen while in Nice and rumors of plastic surgery, including breast, nose and chin jobs, as well as several articles about her breakup with socialite Bingo Gubelmann, who produced "Born Rich."

"That's just absurd," Trump said when asked about the bathing suit incident and the plastic surgery. She acknowledged her breakup with Gubelmann and said she is "happily single and exploring."

There it goes again. That deafening roar of parental approval. But that may not be enough to seal her success on television, suggested Charles Coletta, instructor in the popular culture department at Bowling Green State University, in Bowling Green, Ohio.

"I saw her on the 'Today' show, and she came across like a yes woman," he said. "She and her brother come off as extensions of Donald Trump, just mini-me's; and that's just not exciting."

Other pop culture experts agree, noting that Ivanka does little to express her individuality. "I'd be surprised if she'd ever disagree with her father," said one expert, who declined to be identified.

Ivanka Trump dismisses such claims. She said she plans to start her own jewelry line and points out that she hasn't always worked for her father. Before she arrived, she worked as a project manager in the retail development division of Forest City Ratner Companies in Brooklyn. "Of course I disagree with him," she said. "We are similar in some ways, but we definitely have our differences."