Daughter of The Donald: No glitz, and she's no ditz

CHICAGO — On a recent morning, Donald Trump's 25-year-old daughter, Ivanka — who was soon to join him in the Los Angeles boardroom of "The Apprentice" — came striding into the lobby of his Chicago local headquarters.

"I just got in from Dubai," she said and extended her hand for a shake. At which point, it would have been perfectly normal, if a bit despicable, to have what might be considered Paris Hilton-appropriate thoughts: Well, at least I'm 10 times smarter than she is.

But while it's pretty shallow to automatically dislike her because she's beautiful, you're probably not smarter than she is, either.

Honestly, how many dizzy spotlight-loving socialites do you know who graduated from the Wharton School of Business summa cum laude and are fluent not just in French but in the aggressive language of real-estate development?

She is, after all, vice president of acquisitions and development for the Trump Organization.

And Ivanka's definitely the Daughter of The Donald (DOTD), which means that she makes freewheeling use of superlatives — firsts, bests, tallests — but it somehow comes off as charming, as if she's imitating him.

It also means, to a certain extent, that if you're dumb enough to fall for the dumb-blonde cliché, she's happy to use it to her advantage. "Oh, that's one of the greatest misconceptions — I love going into a negotiation with somebody thinking I'm a dumb blonde," she said.

Still, it must be tough to be the DOTD — and not just because of all the gleefully gratuitous criticism that's bound to come her way, and there's plenty of that.

"Some people just hate the fact that I grew up with a wealthy father; they hate him; they may hate me. I just have to live with it, and it's fine," she said. "Obviously things hurt me, I'm human, but you can't take it too seriously, or yourself too seriously. You start doing that, you're in trouble."

And taking the time to address every single slight? Who would do that? It would be a waste of time, she said, with all the work she has to do.

Can she get fired?

Obviously, though, in addition to the jealous barbs, another downside to being the DOTD, especially if you work for him, is his little habit of firing everybody in sight.

"I know that because of being my father's daughter, I cut out about 10 years of bureaucratic pencil-pushing and paper-pushing to get the chance to do what I'm doing," she said — meaning being involved, out of the gate, in more than 30 projects, at different stages.

"If my dad calls me into his office and asks me about the status of our Deutsche Bank loan for Chicago, I'd better know the answer. If he asks me about sales and marketing in Fort Lauderdale, or a concrete strike, I'm expected to know — everything."

And she's also expected to know that those opportunities "can very swiftly — and my father has told me — be taken away from us," meaning her and her brothers, Eric and Donald Jr., who are also vice presidents in the company.

It's pretty obvious, though, that Donald likes having her around, and the world got to see them working together again when she joined him (along with Donald Jr.) in the television boardroom, as a full-time judge on "The Apprentice" — helping him fire people, and replacing the fired Carolyn Kepcher, who had been executive vice president and CFO of Trump National Golf Club.

Shied away from TV

According to Ivanka, she had previously resisted going on the show (with the exception of filling in last season). Unlike The Donald, who appeared on the Grammy Awards singing the theme song to "Green Acres" wearing overalls and holding a pitchfork, "Don, Eric and I are much more private people — never loved the spotlight all that much. Except for my brief — perhaps a mistake — modeling stint to break up the monotony of boarding-school existence."

And, she had a brief relapse last fall, when she appeared, simultaneously, on the covers of Forbes and the lad mag Stuff — although not in a bathing suit, or lingerie, or with her stomach showing, she pointed out.

But when it comes to "The Apprentice," she's all about the business: "I got there and saw that people were giving us deal points for the options to maybe appear on [the show]. ... It's incredible what people will do for the option to appear on TV," she said.