Billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley, who famously declared ”only little people pay taxes” and later went to prison for tax evasion, died on Monday at the age of 87, her publicist said.
Helmsley died of heart failure at her summer house in Greenwich, Connecticut, publicist Howard Rubenstein said.
She was a former model and twice-divorced real-estate agent when she met Harry Helmsley, a multimillionaire real-estate investor who was married at the time. They wed in 1972.
At the couple’s zenith, Harry Helmsley was worth $5-billion. His company controlled some of New York’s finest hotels and managed the Empire State Building.
In advertisements, Leona was the welcoming spokesperson of the couple’s hotel chain and billed as ”the queen” of the Helmsley Palace hotel.
But behind the scenes she was considered arrogant, quick-tempered, petulant and prone to shouting and firing employees on the spot. The image hurt her when the couple was charged with tax fraud in 1988 by then-United States attorney Rudy Giuliani and she became widely known in the media as ”the queen of mean”.
Her own defence attorney described Helmsley as ”one tough bitch”, though others had kind words for her.
”Leona was a great businesswoman in her own right who created a tremendous brand and success with Helmsley Hotels and was a wonderful partner and wife to Harry Helmsley,” Rubenstein said in a statement announcing her death.
”She was extremely generous as a philanthropist and she gave tens of millions of dollars to charity right up until the last months of her life. I was very proud to represent her for so many years.”
Jail time
The Helmsleys were accused of listing personal expenses as business expenses to hide income. During the tax-fraud trial, a former housekeeper, Elizabeth Baum, recounted that Helmsley had once told her: ”We don’t pay taxes. Only little people pay taxes.”
A judge ruled that Harry Helmsley was not mentally competent to stand trial, but Leona was convicted of evading $1,7-million in taxes and sent to prison in 1992 in Connecticut, where she served 18 months.
While she may have been tough on employees, Helmsley was lovingly dedicated to her husband. ”My fairy tale is over,” she said when Harry died in 1997 at age 87. ”I lived a magical life with Harry.”
Harry left her his entire fortune, which was likely worth about $1,7-billion at the time of his death. Leona sold many of the Helmsley holdings and in 2007 Forbes magazine estimated her fortune had increased to $2,5-billion.
She retired as the face of the hotel chain but continued to run it. In 2002, a former employee, Charles Bell, sued her for being fired for being homosexual and was paid $554 000 in damages.
The Helmsleys had no children, but Leona Helmsley had a son from a previous marriage. — Reuters