The Ludmila Confessions

From left: Pavlina Vasilevna, Kim Novak, Sydney, Ludmila, Dale Garric

Mind you, Wilshire Blvd. is a very busy area around Beverly Hills, so I looked at the car and with a smile gave back the keys to the sales person, and  I said in my broken English, “Please just deliver this car to this address!” and handed them my home address  . They didn’t ask if I had a driver’s license, and just assumed it was a present for somebody else. (I did not volunteer any information and they did not ask!)  The insurance was still in their name since the car was not mine until I finished paying for it. Then I went  home by bus and when I got home it was already there! mamachka was so excited, asking “whose car is that in our garage? These people came I don’t understand what they said but they seemed to know what they were doing. I thought maybe the landlord’s car?”, “No mamachka it is mine– ours!”, “What?” “Yes, ours!” She was so surprised but she said, “Luda go to the garage and open the door,!” and there it was. I was very happy, but then I realized it was a 5 gear manual with a gear shift- how could I get it out? That was a job, but  finally I drove and I only made right turn from the right lane of course, until Daud come to visit us in our new place on Kings Rd. where mama and I lived alone now , (Gala got married and Vera went to a private nuns boarding school in Anaheim), and he showed me how to change gears, and couple of lessons how to turn left from the left lane, and shift smoothly.

Ludmila dancing whit the belly dancer

Well,  after some lessons and couple of days driving, I felt less nervous. No police stopping me, no accidents, so now I guess I better get a Driver’s License! It had been almost a month since I bought my Renault and I still didn’t  know nada about cars! Going to work in it, I had to learn driving on the freeway, since my teaching modeling classes were at night. In the day I would go for interviews for commercials, television shows,.or movies. Mostly I worked modeling and with the shots with the different photographers I managed  to put together a good portfolio.  With that, I got an interview for Mission Impossible (the original T.V.show with Peter Graves). I got the part in it! What a glorious moment when the call me from Nina’s to tell me I srimet I know I got it, right?  yes,  be at the studio at 6am,,  I jumped up and down like a little girl. There was only one woman in this T.V. series then, Barbara Bain ,  what an honor two worked with than, my part was impressive but very small: they put me in front, at the opening of  the credits of the show, just my face , full screen, pivoting my head throwing my hair back, blown by the air.  It was just an opening credit, that was all, but I could not describe what it meant to me. All my dreams in that old swing in the  Island of Margarita  were coming true: the friends , the car, the house , the photographers taking my pictures, people with real love and real interest in me and now, is only  the real beginning of that  mine  DREAM IN A SWING. So yes, it was a small part, but to me was just the first step to what I thought was a new reality on my life,. What I did not realize was I was still dreaming a fantasy. That show’s plot was something about a model, and I had no speaking part, but   my image was beautiful and very impressive. After that came many more television series and films.

Pelagea Vasilivna and Sydney

Thanksgiving was coming up and I was working on a Fashion show with Maria, a 100 percent American girl. She asked me, “Where are you going for Thanksgiving?“ I said I”I don’t know , what is it?” She explained to me that it was a very important holiday to thank God for bringing the Pilgrims to America and for the food they harvested . It was probably the  fourth biggest important Holiday in America, after Christmas , New Year, Easter, then  was Thanksgiving, with pumpkin  pies and things that  we could not  imagine: ham with all different recipes, meat and pork  stews,  mashed potatoes   cranberries, and more pumpkins,. So much  food, and of course lots of drinking too!  Mama and I ,we ate and ate and drank — well, mama didn’t drink a lot maybe couple of glasses of wine. I drank til I could not walk, and that night I paid for it,I was sick to my stomach and gave back the food to the toilet bowl! I was not accustomed to eat so much, but mama was O.K..  The holiday was a little pagan and the masquerade balls  and   Halloween, became part of Thanksgiving. The children’s  games, and the knocks at the doors saying “trick or treat!” all the parades and the big holiday football games, were all new to us!

This was the late 1964s, watching the TV shows like I Spy and  Mission Impossible, you could imagine living in this beautiful home, wrapping presents to take too the children,  with Bud and mama,  to Tijuana. (memories come back to mind of my last holidays with William, now it seems so far away!  Venezuela was already  almost five years ago , and  after five years in America it was already ten years that I have been in a relationship with him especially in Christmas Time!,  I just love December with the twinkling lights and the happy people everybody become so nice and happy. There were many  good memories with my lover William, (I should say fiance) since on my last birthday on Venezuela under the glass of champagne was the most beautiful ring I ever seen like a belt with a buckle of diamants , and after  Christmas,  we went  I remember which was the first time we celebrated New Years together, in the Humboldt Hotel up in the clouds above Caracas, where the cable car went up so high that you could see the other side of the mountain  and the beach at Macuto. The next working day,  we went to the shipping department at the port of Macuto (he had some shipment coming  from U.K.). I was just 16, and his last child was about to be born  any day. After that, he promised  we could make plans for our future, either in England on that gorgeous estate that we went to see on the outskirts of London, it was gorgeous,I believe he said it belong on in time two Churchill,  or on the island of Grenada where he had property. He said it was in my name,  so that I would have something when I got to be 20 years old; it would be my life security, but I must have the abortion  now, he insisted.

How it has been three Christmases ago that we hadn’t celebrated together. Maybe we could celebrate new year together  if I could go to San Francisco?

So it is my fiesta  in my beautiful Beverly Hills home only 2 blocks  off of Wilshire Blvd. and the
Wilshire Hotel 3 Blocks away! I  invited  many famous people (and some not so famous) with plenty of cocaine. I didn’t have to put that much effort into getting coke (now that I think about it, I never paid a penny for any of the drugs They were everywhere , they were  free por me and some of  the models and actors and everyone was using  them openly, it was not like in Caracas it was  not discreet and jash jash  and most of it discreet privacy. Sometimes the coke was just on the table to take as much as you please!  I went to the Hollywood producers and directors parties.   I still had some coke that I got from William and I put it in the medicine cabinet, that is how  stupidly naive I was and of course it  got stolen,! but I did not care.    Richard Dawson arrived at the party with another famous lady, and Daud and his brother and Kim Novak and so many you could not hear a word music , belly dancers etc.. Soon I was dancing a solo, and then I danced with two belly dancers, and then  I danced flamenco, and again I had too much to drink, and soon my head was spinning wuuuu! I  think I had too much  fun in those days.   The next day mama head coffee made , very early and orange juice , I woke up two gave her a kiss and with intention to go back immediately back two bed ,  when we open the door to our surprise, behind the door in the entryway there was a big beautiful Birthday card and a bottle of  ice cold Dom Perignon Champagne from Richard !   said good by two mama and closed the door and read the lovely note,. What a gentleman to think of apologizing for coming to  my party empty handed, because he did not know he was going to a birthday party.  He was just being driven home by one of his leading ladies from the set where they were shooting a film,, and she took him here! How very beautiful of him! I proceeded to open the bottle and thought, how nice it is to drink something really good.  I just love my mama for not saying  anything, not a word, about my  dancing and drinking. That day I did not think about all my obligations or responsibilities, and I honestly don’t remember the rest of the day.!