The Ludmila Confessions

Teaching Gala how to do manicure

I had my very own apartment! I was astonished walking into this three bedroom place, with all the basic furniture, a refrigerator and stove. It was all I needed! I just had to call and tell mama and Gala the good news, where life had taken me! Here now, living in Hollywood, in Beverly Hills, three blocks from Rodeo Drive, four blocks from the Wilshire Hotel where many stars stay, near Beverly Hills Hotel and Bel Air Hotel. There were gorgeous people around, going for cocktails, shopping, playing tennis, and meeting other beautiful people.

Outside my apartment was a newspaper. Although I could barely understand anything, I saw an ad for “Models Wanted”. I wrote down the address and off I went! I walked into Jocelyn Ryans studios and the receptionist wanted to sell me a modeling course. The place was more like a school than an agency. I said, “I don’t need a course, I’m here to model.” So indignantly I got up and headed for the door to exit, when a lady in the far office stepped out and said: “Please wait a minute and do come into my office.” Jocelyn offered me a job, and I became the top teacher for her students. At the time, I needed a job and money so I said, “okay, but I never taught before.” She said, “Your etiquette and manners are perfect, and you walk fantastically! That is what I want you to teach.”  I trained her clients and other teachers as my first job in Hollywood.

When I left, I had no idea how to get back to my apartment, but there was another young lady, Cathy, and she said, “Can I give you a lift?”  The Americans seemed so kind and graceful, simple like children!  She said she was friends with Bob Denver, the star of Gilligan’s Island TV show. On our way she somehow conveyed to me that she had a date with two brothers for dinner, and asked if I would I like to go?  I agreed, and that night a white big Lincoln town car, came for me, with Daud at the wheel and his brother in the back. With my new friend Cathy. Daud opened the door for me in front and I sat next to him. I soon found out he was a Muslim, born in Baghdad. I thought, how romantic! I had read “The Arab” and was fascinated by that novel, where the Arab steals the girl and takes her to the desert to a passionate romance. Daud was very attractive, but a little short and kind of round, divorced with a ten year old son, Douglas, who was away in school someplace, and he did not see his ex-wife.

Daud fell in love with me, but being of two different religions complicated things. ‘Baba’ the chief of this group of Hollywood Arabs was okay with him loving me, but marriage was not a sure thing. Of course we talked about other Arabs with children born in America and with a very open mind, but marriage was the furthest thing from my mind at that time. So we went out, the four of us, again and again. One night we went to a belly dancing cabaret, very sexy, until the wee hours of the night. There was lots of champagne for me and Cathy. Daud, being a very religious man, read the Quran all the time in his house and did not drink. But his younger brother Ali did. We all wound up at their beautiful newly constructed house in the Hollywood Hills. There was a large Arabic rug on the floor where we made love. Soon he became almost like my shadow, a good person to have as a friend. He was very helpful and generous when a need would arise.

I still had no money to pay the rent for my apartment, because I hadn’t received my first check yet, but Daud helped, and then he helped me to call my sister and invite her to live with me and bring mama too! He took me to interviews and to photographers, and was a good person. He felt like a Godsend. Every time I was lonesome or wanted to go out I could go to one of the houses that he had bought, fixed and prepared to resell. I always knew where the keys were.

I worked a very short time in a boutique as a mistress assistant to pin the dresses on the customers, and of course I was fired. At first I only taught a few times a week at the modeling agency, but by November when all the family was together, I was teaching almost every day.

Of course I had kept communication with Walter, who asked me to come be with him for a few days. So off I flew to Caracas! Like the saying, just whistle and I’ll be there. Walter would say, “Yes, I will marry you, but after I sell the business.” It was just another promise he would make and never keep but in my naive spirit I would hold onto the hope that it would one day come true. How stupid I was to believe him, but I thought that I really loved him. Then I saw Oscar, told him how I missed him, where I lived, and gave him my address.

You are probably wondering, what was going on in my mind? Did I think I could have as many husbands as I wanted? I read about a place where a woman had a husband for every day! Can I even explain that to myself? I was supposed to be a decent girl who believed in God. Was there something wrong with me? Was I alright? Well, no, I don’t think so. I was a sick puppy in a sick world.  I was already an alcoholic, but of course I did not know of such a sickness. Nobody ever told me that I was drinking too much, and I had no parents smart or rich enough to send me to get help.  I never thought that there was something wrong with me. I thought I was just living life, the way it came, moving with the breeze like a feather, with no rhyme or reason, only enjoying it day by day. I honestly enjoyed my life back then, just like always, creating my own reality, but the fantasies and dreams were soon evaporating like water from the sand. I was getting worn down. I went to a doctor for Benzedrine so I wouldn’t eat. I thought I was heavy and wanted to lose a miserable five pounds. No one ever told me that I was not going in the right direction.

Now I had some modeling jobs. One of them was with Johnny Mathis, as the announcer to a big party in Bel Air. When he introduced me he said something like, “I present to you, Ludmila, the top high fashion model of Hollywood!”

I started going to beauty salons, one of the very famous Paganos, which was later sold to John Peters, the boyfriend of Barbra Streisand. Soon an idea came to me– why not tell my sister to become a manicurist; after all she had that beauty salon on Porlamar? So I did, and we started practicing at home. Then she had to get a cosmetology license to work at Paganos where I introduced her.

We went to the city hall to the board of cosmetology.  She wouldn’t go unless I took the exam with her. We did the paperwork and took the exam, but of course we flunked! So the person in charge said, “You can stay and do it again, you have another chance.”

We ended up with three in the room, after everybody left including the examiner.  With the exams there was a cardboard template with holes on it, that had the correct answers.  So, intelligent me said to Gala, “you look at the door to warn us if the lady is coming. I will get that paper and mark our exams” and also I helped this little Italian guy that wanted to work as a beautician. So we sat back after I had copied all the correct answers for the three of us, and guess what? We passed!