The Ludmila Confessions

I have to clarify what was not clear in my last blog. La Negra Maldonado is a daughter of a large Haciendado of a coffee plantation in San Lucas Toliman, at Lake Atitlan. After the bike accident they took me there, to the only doctor available around this mountain area of the lake, without going to the other side of the lake, where all the tourist area are. Jose met some friends walking with La Negra, while I was with the local doctor and they all agreed that I would be better off in her Hacienda because I would be much more comfortable there, with servants and such, which Jose did not have in his small cabana.

Grant and Ludmila going to the stables in Hollywood to horseback riding.

After my motorcycle accident, I could not walk, nor do modeling, but I could be a makeup consultant, with my large experience in cosmetics and makeup. I was very good at it, so I landed a fantastic job, on the top floor of a gorgeous salon in one of the most famous stores in Beverly Hills.

In the picture I am with Grant who was helping me remodel a horrible little nightmare house that I purchased for a very good price. I would lay on my living room floor with drinks, plenty of them, and pain pills, while my left leg was immobilized.

I started feeling an unfamiliar feeling that I was on my own, alone, with no one to protect me like Jack used to do– I used to feel so secure with him!

I don’t really know how I felt because I was always medicating with alcohol. In a way I reverted, to some degree confronting myself and taking responsibility of myself. Now that life showed me this, I was back starting where I began at birth!

I remember it well! The insane house purchase. Well, at the time it seemed like a good idea!

Jose and Ludmila sitting in the street of Guatemala

Before I had left for Guatemala, I purchased a house without even seeing it, just so we would have a house when we came back. Well, now Mr. Grant Lesley was working on remodeling this horror, and he was handsome, but short, with blond hair, blue eyes and an outgoing personality. Just what the doctor ordered, jajajaja!  He was very charming, so he convinced me to remodel this little garbage house into a mini-jungle in the guest room, wall-to-wall paper with jungle animals, tigers, panthers and lions, orchids and palm trees in the living room (for real) so you could not see in from the street but I could see out.

In the main bedroom was a white wall-to-wall carpet, white walls, white silk bedding, a white fox fur imitation bad cover, a night table with a red base, white and red roses, and a large mirror reflecting the light of the window and plants from outside. There was a mini garden outside, plus a white rocking chair.

Taking a ride with Bud Harrod after modeling

Today, I realize that Grant was a really good friend: he took my mind off Jose, my injuries, and the pain of mourning I was going through. (I thank you Grant– I hope you are reading this wherever you are. You were a fantastic decorator, carpenter, designer, everything!) The living room was Mexican with large wooden furniture made by him. It was in front of the new design red brick fireplace, that replaced the original one, with a large red hardwood mantel. The kitchen had a table which stuck out of the counter of the dining area, with a bar behind it, and a door to the small garden. The garage was on the other side to the living room and the hall away to the left.

Well, I spent most of the money from the divorce settlement, but I had a showplace that I loved and that made me grow. It was the most romantic place, tiny but enchanting! The hallway to my room was full of books on each side of the walls. I had many fantastic books, some that I lugged with me from Venezuela.  (How strange now I rarely read anymore!)  Books from Thomas Mann to all the collected works of Winston Churchill, philosophers all the way back to Socrates and Plato. (Socrates did not write, of course, he spoke and Plato wrote down his dialogues and his ideas and philosophy).

Smoking a tobacco pipe

Grant and I became more than friends, lovers of course, but with no attachments. We had a lot of fun remodeling this ugly duckling into our fantasy of a beautiful fairy tale home. I loved it and everyone who came to my home loved it too. I had some really good parties. Jack came by with his new girlfriend Joy who he married later on, Jeff Cooper, and many other famous people and of course movie stars.

Then when I got better I went back to work, with my favorite designer Bud Harrod, who at one time was my boyfriend– and the only man that ever put a diamond ring on my finger! It was over a one karat rock that had belonged to his father. Not for a proposal, because he was scared of marriage after his last experience. We worked well together, in harmony you could say, and we went to Las Vegas for New Years and many other US cities for designer week– New York, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas. On one trip to San Francisco, I saw Walter again for the last time. He was back from Hawaii, and we had a farewell dinner at the Saint Francis hotel. We talked about his Cafe Imperial, the coffee I helped him sell door to door in L.A. It was a fantastic idea, but it did not sell at that time.

My set of friends had begun to change, and I was moving more into the business world instead of Hollywood showbiz. I was thinking about starting my own line of beauty products, facial creams. I contacted my ex-lover and dear friend Buck Rogers, who by then was living in Mexico City instead of Acapulco where I met him. Then in LA I was introduced to a Clairol executive.