The Ludmila Confessions

Halloween at Ludmila’s house in Northridge

My tremendous appetite for life took me to many places– wild adventures, romances, fantasies– places that most people only see in movies. I walked with a cane, smoked a pipe, rode a motorcycle. Later Bianca Jagger started doing this; of course she was very famous with a husband like Mick Jagger. As a model I refused to wear corsets or a bra with some dresses because it was very uncomfortable. In that time they had not perfected the C cup, but it was perfected on my body before it went to the world market. They paid me well and the picture came out later very discreetly. In that time we were not about being sexy, we were just mannequins and a model was an example of a lady. I appeared in The Roughs, and Mission Impossible, but nothing big enough to put my face in every household.

There were movies about the holocaust then, like Anne Frank’s Diary, that made me remember why Walter went to Auschwitz and sent me straight to Frankfurt from Munich. It is difficult to get rid of him and our memories together. It seems sometimes that they will stay with me forever, because even now I can’t stop thinking about the abortions and what might have been. To drown out the memories I continued to the next party. I was always ready to drink, meet new lovers and have a gay old time! You might wonder how can she have so many men in her life? The thing I wondered was: What was happening to me, to my mind, and soul, at that time? I simply did not know another way of life, this was it, and I liked it.

The Hacienda in Northridge: Jack clowning around on a Nubian goat in the orange grove. At one time we had more than 300 domestic animals!

Then I met Ben Bennetia, a wonderful, happy go lucky man. He was handsome, slim, tall with dark olive skin, and big eyelashes that covered his great green eyes. He reminded me of the priest’s eyes from “Aquellos Ojos Verdes” de mirada serena (serene look). The two of us had a great time together, smoking pot and drinking white wine in my room at the Chateau Marmont hotel in Hollywood, where I lived at that time. Once we awoke with the mattress on fire– yes, I did that! The worst part was I didn’t even like pot, but I would do anything to please the man I was with. I just wanted to be loved, which is not a crime– the crime was what I was doing to my soul.

Ben did not want to marry me, although he really loved me, because I was a white-skinned Russian Orthodox and he was a dark Sephardic Jew. He did not think it was a good idea for any children that would come. We talked and talked about it, but he decided to take off hitchhiking all the way to Argentina from Los Angeles with a friend, and was gone for a couple of years. He had to forget about me and our plans and it would be a long time before I would see him again.

New Years at the entrance to the Hacienda: Ilona Wilson (a great actress and friend) with Ludmila

Time passed and life took me to many places, some that I am not proud to describe. I was already married to Jack when one day I met Ben again at a big party. I still could see that love in his eyes, and I knew he did not forget me, he still carried me in his heart. But I was the wife of another man now and he respected that. So we parted ways with a handshake, to never see each other again. Of course, I would love to hear from him again one day, some place. We never know what the future holds. Life has many surprises for us every day.

After working, playing, and drinking more and more, I began using benzedrine to keep weight off. I was drinking and eating so I needed speed to lose weight. Eventually Jack and I became more than lovers. One day he and I decided to get married. And so we did, on the same day the first men walked on the moon! It was not planned that way, but my church had scheduled it for that day, so we married three times: once by civil law, once by my church and once by the church of Scientology. Jack was into it because his good friend, Stanley Stromfeld, was also in it. Parties were everywhere with people celebrating for Neil Armstrong on the moon who said, “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” The radio and TV were playing Frank Sinatra’s big hit “Fly me to the Moon“. It was just party central in 1969. Work was now taking second place in my life.

Jack bought a great mansion in the Northridge near Busch Haezer beer Gardens, with three bedrooms, a huge kitchen, formal dining room and living room, with a big stone fireplace. It even had an office library room that was all wood with a smaller fireplace, and a window out to the service hall for drinks and snacks. The patio led to an outdoor open fireplace next to a big swimming pool; we even had a trampoline. All this was very private because it was enclosed with a bamboo wall fence from the back neighbors. On one side of the house was a two car garage and green grass lawn, and on the other side was a big orange grove, with a gate for the truck to get in. We were happy there, it was really a beautiful big private place. And it was exciting for me, because I never had a home, like this mansion, of my own: a dream come true! Now I was a lady with a mansion, and a long black Cadillac convertible in my garage. All this was mine, but I did not let the fumes go to my head. I was the same Ludmila, all parties and all smiles. I worked on my farm with rabbits, goats, a little bull and Emily, my prize New Hampshire pig. She was so intelligent!

It was a wonderful life, especially when my mamachka Palina, my sister and my dear niece came and we had a family party. But slowly and surely in time, my modeling career was being replaced for more drugs and alcohol. The parties for every holiday seemed to have no end. I loved hosting parties, enjoying life “to the max,” with parties for Halloween, even Easter egg hunts for the children in the neighborhood. The class of people on my list included movie stars, hippies, bohemians, screenwriters, and businessmen. But I kept my family separate from all but a few special guests. I wouldn’t dare mix my family with the druggies and orgy people, so I bounced back from one extreme to the other. Regardless, I simply loved my life. Some Easter hunts I had mama with me giving presents and colored eggs to the kids. All the unhappy memories seemed to vanish from me at that time. I suppose it had been the physical remoteness of my father that made me hungry for the human touch, and gave way to my tremendous appetite for life. Maybe this was what led me to my adventures, imaginative life style and vivacious energy that others didn’t seem to have.