The Ludmila Confessions

Ludmila with her husband, the famous jazz trumpeter Jack Millman

Before the great New York blackout, I was working as a model for Oleg Cassini, a very famous designer of royal blood. He was the wardrobe designer for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, the wife of President J. F. Kennedy. Cassini hired me for a big show, but said before the show that was two days away, “You cannot eat, you can only have 3 glasses of Metrecal a day.” At 115 pounds, I was the skinniest I had ever been as a model, but in the 1960s you could never be too thin!

By now my love for Walter was fading, into a memory of a beautiful painful dream, and for obvious reasons I tried not to think of him anymore. But I couldn’t help hearing the music from “My Fair Lady” or “South Pacific” or “Gigi”– all those musicals that we went to together. Their soundtracks were famous and they were playing everywhere. As the showtunes haunted me, tears would roll down my cheeks, but with a discreet silence I just wept and kept on going, toward more dreams and the life that awaits. But deep inside there was a small torch of hope still burning for him: one day, maybe one day?

While I was married to Tom, he would go off to Las Vegas doing his thing with friends. Bud came by several times and left me his car. One time the nosy neighbors reported to U.S. immigration investigators that I had a man visitor and his car was there overnight. After Tommy died I went ahead with my immigration application, and they sat me down and asked if I had committed any crimes while in this country.

Ludmila on the magazine cover, advertising for the Hotel Tropicana, Las Vegas

The day was coming for my swearing in to become a U.S. citizen, so I was thinking of the stuff that had happened in Florida. I said, “Well I was arrested in Miami for driving intoxicated with no license.”  They replied, “We know all about that. What else?” Now this was 1965, when there were no computers like today. I couldn’t think of anything more to say, then the man said, “What about being an adulteress on Kings Road?” I almost fell out of my chair! “You’re married and had men visitors in your home, so that makes you an adulteress. You have to prove the contrary.” I explained that Bud was a friend and colleague who left his Cadillac overnight while we flew to Las Vegas to do a layout for a magazine of his clothes. “So he slept overnight in your home, that’s what the neighbors said. You were with another man and been seen with him a lot, while your husband was not home with you.” Oh my Lord, I couldn’t say nada mas (nothing more)! “So I cannot become a US citizen?” I asked. “No, not until you’re proven guilty or innocent or you prove what you are saying is true.”

So I was denied citizenship the first time I applied. But, nothing could stop the party! It was the 1960s and I was living it up doing everything I wanted. Life was full of surprises and crazy, wonderful times. The flower children were parading under my balcony on Sunset Strip. Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Club was on the other side of the street. I could see the whole building from my balcony. The Beatles were on television and the radio, psychedelic sitar, and the preferred music of the hippies was playing everywhere. Bob Dylan was in the news with the song that was forbidden in some countries “Lay Lady Lay.”  It was the best of times!

I met jazz trumpeter Jack Millman and we went to a movie premier together. (That’s another story that will be in my book!).
To celebrate my birthday we went to Disneyland in full high class formal attire. With my big modeling bag we went head on, ready with the dry ice, 2 bottles of Dom Perignon champagne and a small bag of cocaine. We wanted to have fun at night on the rides and then sit on the beautiful gazebo in front of the stage, where Louis Armstrong was playing his great trumpet. Jack told me that when he played the last time, he had reached the highest notes that were possible for him, and that was the end of his trumpet playing days. After that he threw his trumpet from a cliff in Malibu into the Ocean and never played again. He told me this story in a gorgeous setting, the smell of roses filling the air beneath the starlit California sky. In that time this place was surrounded by orange groves so the skies were clean and there was very little pollution. That was the type of quality time, that Jack and I had together, besides going to red carpet openings of new films, hot nightclubs, and lots of private parties.

One night we were invited to Hugh Hefner’s party, so we dressed up to the nines and went across the street to the Playboy Building. The Bunny Club was on the first floor; up on the top floor was Hugh’s living quarters, until his Playboy mansion was built. His Penthouse was very private: no one without an invitation would be able to go up to his top floor. When we arrived at the club, there were bunnies everywhere serving drinks, and pictures of his black playboy jet were hung on every wall. Apparently it was a flying orgy club! Marisa, a very cute bunny, was his lover at that time. A waitress bunny asked what I wanted, and I simply said “Coca!” in Spanish, wanting to get high. She came back with a tray and a glass of Pepsi. “Mr. Hefner only serves Pepsi!” she said. Jack and I laughed and looked at each other: “It must have been the loud music, obviously that’s why you didn’t hear me well.” But we ignored her and the soft drinks, because at that moment everybody was heading in to see Hugh on a round rotating bed, fornicating with Marisa! Everybody was watching them and some even started undressing and jumping into the action. After a few minutes I said to Jack “You’re welcome to stay, but I am going home.”

I was not so much into sex, I was more into love. Love me, caress me, cherish me, accept me–  that was what I was hungry for!