Queen of Mean kicks the bucket

[Skylace]

Leona Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean," has died of heart failure at the age of 87, surprising since many thought her heart had stopped working long ago.

The billionaire widow of former New York real estate and hotel tycoon Harry Helmsley personified for many the 1980s decade of greed and excess, once quipping to a member of her household staff that "only the little people pay taxes."

Helmsley denied ever saying that, but it stuck with her all her life and helped convict her of federal tax evasion in 1989. Former federal prosecutor (and now possible presidential candidate) Rudolph Giuliani got Helmsley sent away for 16 years after she was convicted on multiple counts of fraud and tax evasion. She ultimately served just 18 months and was released in 1994. Her husband had been found too sick to stand trial.

As of last September, Helmsley ranked 117th on the Forbes Richest Americans list, with a net worth of $2.5 billion.

She was never able to shake her reputation as the boss from hell, known for terrorizing subordinates and executives alike, and seemingly anyone else who crossed her path. Many saw her as bizarrely imperious for someone whose livelihood was the hospitality business. A New York Times book reviewer once described her as "The Lady MacBeth of the lodging industry."

The Helmsleys' real estate empire in New York at one time included the Empire State Building, the Helmsley Palace hotel, the Helmsley Building at the foot of Park Avenue and the Tudor City apartment complex in addition to several other hotel properties.

Forbes has chronicled Helmsley's feud with the other egomaniacal real estate mogel in New York, Donald Trump.

Helmsley was born Leona Mindy Rosenthal in upstate New York and grew up in Brooklyn. She had just a high school degree and worked through two marriages before meeting Helmsley in the late-1960s when she was working as a real estate agent. Helmsley divorced his then-wife and married Leona in 1972. When he died in 1997, he left her his $5 billion estate.

Wherever Helmsley has gone in the last two decades, litigation has followed her. She has been sued by several former employees, including a suit by Charles Bell, who alleged he was fired for being gay. Helmsley lost that case and a jury ordered her to pay Bell more than $11 million. A judge reduced the award to $554,000.

Most recently Helmsley got into a dispute with a cemetery, of all places, when she decided that her departed husband's resting place in the Bronx had lost the pleasant vista it once had because of construction. She had his body disinterred and moved to a $1.4 million marble mausoleum built for him at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, final resting place to many prominent New Yorkers including Washington Irving, who wrote The Legend of Sleepy Hallow.

[faceless]

1.4 million for a corpse? If there is a hell I hope she's there now, having red-hot pokers shoved up her arse!

[pirtybirdy]

Yay! ding dong the witch is dead....

[eefanincan]

[alan1254]

[11antoniacourt]

[6ULDV8]

There was a full hour taken up about her on the Biography chn' last night. "Biography Remembers"

I watched quite a bit of the TV show, it was a good 50 / 50 look at her & the antics she pulled.

One thing I found interseting from it... the year that the Helmsley's were supposed to be invading tax to the tune of one point something million.... they had paid over fifty eight million for that year & had a spotless tax record prior to it.

[SpursFan1902]

I had no idea she was so old...I am sure that she will get what she deserves.

[6ULDV8]

A BILLIONAIRESS has left £6million in her will — to her DOG.

But hotel magnate Leona Helmsley — dubbed the Queen of Mean — left some relatives NOTHING.

Leona, who died in New York aged 87, notoriously spoiled her bitch, Trouble.

The Maltese terrier refused to eat from a bowl and staff had to feed her by hand — which often led to nasty nips.

Employees said Helmsley would even disrupt service in the kitchen of her Park Lane Hotel — where she lived — by insisting that the chef drop what he was doing to make gourmet meals for the pooch.

Housekeeper Zamfira Sfara sued after the Maltese terrier bit her when she gave it a bath — and claimed Leona said: “Good for you, Trouble.”

In 2000, the spoiled mutt nipped a diner in the restaurant. Helmsley told her victim: “I guess Trouble doesn’t like you.”


Her will said: “When my dog dies, her remains shall be buried next to my remains in the Helmsley Mausoleum.”

Despite her fortune of between £2billion and £4billion, she left two of her grandchildren nothing “for reasons which are known to them”.

She reportedly refused to talk to them because none named their kids after her late husband, Harry.

None of her 12 great-grandchildren is mentioned in the will.

She left £20million to two grandsons — but they lose half unless they visit their father’s grave every year.

[eefanincan]

I also read that she stipulated that her mausoleum be washed down or "steam cleaned" once a year and that she left her chauffer $100 000.

Truly a strange woman.