Now, Ivanka Trump is poised to become one of the most influential -- and powerful -- first daughters in US history. Like few others in the incoming president's orbit, Trump has her father's ear and his trust. "She . . . has a great way of being able to, you know, talk to him," Ivanka's brother Don Jr.

"We have in the audience a special person who's worked very hard, who married very well. It's my daughter Ivanka," Donald Trump told an adoring crowd on the night before his inauguration. Trump, who was standing beneath the domed ceiling of Union Station in formal eveningwear, was doing his best Bob Hope impersonation-equal parts crowd warm-up act, fund-raising emcee, and bar mitzvah boy at his candle-lighting ceremony.