"Queen of Mean" redirects here. For the British presenter and game show host, see Anne Robinson.
Leona Helmsley (July 4 1920 – August 20 2007) was a billionaire New York
City hotel operator and real estate investor. She was
a flamboyant personality and had a reputation for tyrannical behavior that earned her the nickname "Queen of Mean." The image of
Helmsley was sealed when a former housekeeper testified that she heard Helmsley say: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people
pay taxes." She was convicted of federal income tax evasion and other crimes in 1989 and served 19
months in prison (and two more months in house arrest), after receiving an initial sentence of 16 years.
Biography
Early life
Leona Helmsley was born Lena Mindy Rosenthal in Marbletown,
Ulster County, New York, to Polish Jewish immigrants, daughter of a hatmaker.
Her family moved to Brooklyn while she was still a girl, and moved six more times before
settling in Manhattan. She dropped out of high school to seek her fortune. In a short time,
she changed her name several times--from Lee Roberts, Mindy Roberts, Leni Roberts and Leona Mindy Roberts. Eventually, she
decided on Leona Mindy Roberts.[1] She legally
changed her surname to Roberts.[1]. Helmsley would later claim that she appeared in billboard ads for Chesterfield cigarettes, but
there is no evidence of this, and her claim remains entirely unsubstantiated. She was, however, a chain smoker, using several
packs a day.
Her first husband was attorney Leo Panzirer, whom she divorced in 1959. Their only son was Jay (1940–1982), who had four
children with his wife, Mimi. Leona was married and divorced twice to her second husband, garment industry executive Joseph
Lubin. After a brief stint at a sewing factory, she joined a New York real estate firm, where her sales prowess eventually won
her a promotion to vice president.
Hotel career
Leona Panzirer was a condominium broker in 1968 when she met and began her involvement with
the then-married multi-millionaire real estate investor Harry Helmsley. In 1970, she
joined one of Harry Helmsley's brokerage firms — Brown, Harris, Stevens — as a senior vice president. At that time, she was
already a millionaire in her own right. Harry Helmsley divorced his wife of 33 years and married Leona on April 8, 1972. Leona's
marriage to Harry may well have saved her career. Late in 1971, several of Leona's tenants sued her
for forcing the tenants of one of the apartments she managed to buy condominiums. They won, and Leona was not only forced to compensate the tenants, but
give them a three-year lease. Her real estate license was also suspended, but she focused on running Harry's growing
hotel empire.
Supposedly under her influence, Harry Helmsley began a program of conversion of apartment buildings into condos. He later
concentrated on the hotel industry, building the Helmsley Palace on Madison Avenue. Together the Helmsleys built a real estate
empire in New York City including 230 Park Avenue, the Empire State Building, the
Tudor City apartment complex on the East Side of Manhattan, and Helmsley-Spear, their management and leasing business. The couple
also developed properties that included the Park Lane Hotel, the New York Helmsley Hotel and the Helmsley Palace Hotel, and
hotels in Florida and other states.
Leona Helmsley was featured in an advertising campaign portraying her as a demanding "queen" who demanded nothing but the best
for her guests. However, in real life she was known for being a tyrannical boss whose petulance seemed ill-suited to the
hospitality industry. The slightest mistake was usually grounds for firing.
On March 31, 1982, her only child, Jay Panzirer, died of a heart attack. Leona then sued her son's estate for money and
property that she said he had borrowed, and her son's widow Mimi--who lived in a property she owned--received an eviction notice.
Mimi Panzirer — the mother of Leona's four grandchildren — later said the legal expenses wiped her out and "to this day I don't
know why they did it."
Tax evasion conviction
Despite the Helmsleys' tremendous wealth (between them, they were worth well over a billion dollars), they were known for
disputing payments to contractors and vendors. One of these disputes would prove to be their undoing.
In 1983, the Helmsleys bought a 21-room mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut to use as a weekend retreat. The property cost $11 million, but the
Helmsleys wanted to make it even more luxurious than it had been before. The remodeling bill came to $8 million, but the
Helmsleys were wary of paying it--or paying the taxes due on the effort. A group of contractors had to go to court to get most of
the money; the Helmsleys eventually paid off most of the debt. In 1985, during these proceedings,
the contractors found out that most of their work was being billed to the Helmsleys' hotels as business expenses--a very common
and illegal practice. Enraged, the contractors sent a stack of invoices to the New York
Post to prove that the Helmsleys were trying to write their work off in this manner. The resulting Post story
led to a federal criminal investigation. In 1988, United
States Attorney Rudy Giuliani indicted the Helmsleys and two of their associates on
several tax-related charges, as well as extortion.[1]
The trial was delayed until the summer of 1989 due to numerous motions by the Helmsleys' attorneys--most of them related to
Harry's health. He had begun to appear enfeebled shortly after the beginning of his relationship with Leona Helmsley years
before, and had recently suffered a stroke on top of a pre-existing heart condition. Ultimately, he was ruled mentally and
physically unfit to stand trial, and Leona had to face the charges alone.[1]
At trial, one of the key witnesses was a former housekeeper at the Helmsley home, Elizabeth Baum, who recounted having the
following exchange with Leona Helmsley four to six weeks after being hired in September, 1983, :
I said : You must pay a lot of taxes. She said : We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay
taxes.[2]
Helmsley denied ever saying this. Helmsley's former employees testified at trial "about how they feared her, with one
recalling how she casually fired him while she was being fitted for a dress."[3] Most legal observers felt that Mrs. Helmsley's personality and wealth alienated the jurors.[4]
On August 30, Helmsley was convicted and sentenced of one count of conspiracy to defraud
the United States,[5] three counts of tax evasion,[6]
three counts of filing false personal tax returns,[7]
sixteen counts of assisting in the filing of false corporate and partnership tax returns,[8] and ten counts of mail fraud.[9] (See United States v. Helmsley, 941 F.2d 71, 91-2 U.S.
Tax Cas. (CCH) paragr. 50,455 (2d Cir. 1991), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 1091 (1992).)
She was, however, acquitted of extortion--a charge that could have sent her to prison for the rest of her life. She was
sentenced to 16 years in prison, but eventually had that sentence significantly reduced when all but eight of the charges were
dropped.[1] Nonetheless, when it was clear she
was going to jail, she collapsed outside of the courthouse, later diagnosed with a heart irregularity and hypertension.
Although Helmsley's reputation as the "Queen of Mean" is sealed, Helmsley was generous in her charitable contributions after
her prison term. After September 11, 2001, she donated $5 million to help families of New York firefighters. Among other
contributions, she also gave $25 million to New York's Presbyterian Hospital for medical research.
After prison
Helmsley served 18 months in federal prison. Her later years were apparently spent in isolation, especially after Harry died
in 1997. A 2001 Chicago Sun-Times article
depicted her as estranged from her grandchildren and with few friends, living alone in a lavish apartment with her dog [10] In 2002, Helmsley was sued by Charles Bell, a former employee
who alleged that he was discharged solely for being homosexual. A jury agreed and ordered
Mrs. Helmsley to pay Bell $11,200,000 in damages. A judge subsequently reduced this amount to
$554,000.[11] Harry left her his entire fortune, estimated
to be worth well in excess of $5 billion, upon his death in 1997.[12]
Death
Leona Helmsley died from congestive heart failure, at the age of 87, on
August 20 2007, at her summer home in Greenwich, Connecticut [13][14] Cardiovascular disease ran in her family, claiming the lives of her father, son and a
sister.[15][16][17].
After a week at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel, she was entombed next to Harry Helmsley in a mausoleum constructed for $1.4
million[18] and set on 3/4 acre in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Westchester County, New York.
Helmsley left the bulk of her estate — estimated at more than $4 billion — to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable
Trust.[19] She also left her Maltese, Anne Wulf, a $12 million trust fund.[20] She left $15 million for her brother Alvin Rosenthal. Helmsley had four grandchildren. Two of them
each will receive $5 million in trust and $5 million outright, under the condition that they visit their father's grave site once
each calendar year. Her other two grandchildren, Craig and Meegan Panzirer, receive nothing. It has been alleged that they were
omitted from the will because they failed to name any of their children after her late husband. She also left her chauffeur,
Nicholas Celea, $100,000.[21][22]
Popular culture
Helmsley was lampooned by Nora Dunn on several episodes of Saturday Night Live in the late 1980s,[23] and was a recurring character in the comic strip, Zippy the
Pinhead.[24] Her name was also used by pro
wrestler Hunter Hearst Helmsley ("Triple H") as part of his wrestling gimmick.
Lil' Kim mentions her on the song "No One Else" ("I'm Leona Hemsley Taxes is gettin'
axes").
In a Far Side cartoon, Helmsley is seen walking down the stairs to check on her
remodelers' progress in a scene from Leona Helmsley Meets the Three Stooges. In
another cartoon, she is apparently an avid bungee jumper, often complaining about the tightness of the cords around her
ankles.
In film
The story of her adult life was dramatized in the 1990 TV
movie Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean, which starred Suzanne Pleshette
as Leona and Lloyd Bridges as Harry. Pleshette was nominated for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the portrayal.[25]
Further reading
References
- ^ a b c d The Queen of Mean http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/scams/leona_helmsley/index.html The Queen of Mean] from Court TV's Crime Library
- ^ "Maid Testifies Helmsley Denied Paying Taxes: Says She Told Her 'Only the Little People Pay,'"
Associated Press (AP), carried in New York Times, July 12, 1989, pg. B2. See also "Number 27743," The Columbia World of
Quotations (Columbia University Press, 1996).
- ^ Leona
Helmsley, Hotelier and Real Estate Icon, Dies Bloomberg News (August 20, 2007)
- ^ U.S. v. Helmsley: 1989 - "We Don't Pay Taxes. Only The Little People Pay Taxes.". Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
- ^ 18 U.S.C. § 371.
- ^ 26 U.S.C. § 7201.
- ^ 26 U.S.C. § 7206.
- ^ 26 U.S.C. § 7206.
- ^ 18 U.S.C. § 1341.
- ^ < "Empty
riches of the 'queen of mean'"
- ^ Metro Briefing. New York Times (March 5, 2003). Retrieved on 2007-05-15.
- ^ "Guilty of being
rich—victimization of hotel magnate Leona Helmsley," Paul Craig Roberts, Ph.D.,
National Review, November 15, 1993.
- ^ "Leona Helmsley, The
"Queen Of Mean," Has Died At 87", Post Chronicle, 2007-08-20. Retrieved on 2007-08-20.
- ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070820/ap_on_re_us/obit_helmsley
- ^ USNews update, August
16, 2004.
- ^ Leona Helmsley
Dies, Obituary from WCBS Newsradio 880 (WCBS-AM New York).
- ^ Hotelier Leona Helmsley dies at 87, AP, 8/20/2007
- ^ (Reuters) "New York's Helmsley to rest in $1.4 mln mausoleum" 21 August 2007
- ^ http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/leona-helmsleys-unusual-last-will
- ^ James Clench Rich bitch leaves £6m to dog
The Sun - August 30, 2007
- ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082900491.html
- ^ Joanna Grossman (Sep. 18, 2007). Last Words from the "Queen of Mean":
Leona Helmsley's Will, The Challenges That Are Likely to Be Posed to It, and the Likely Fate of the World's Second Richest
Dog.
- ^ Saturday Night Live Archives
- ^ Zippy the
Pinhead.
- ^ Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean at the Internet Movie
Database
External links
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