Biography
American entrepreneur who
specialized in property development and, some might add, outrageous
behavior. She found her forte in real estate and was considered a genius
in turning over property. When she met hotel millionaire Harry Helmsley,
11 years her senior, they combined forces to build a huge financial
empire amidst personal and corporate intrigue. They signed for the
location of their first hotel on July 1, 1974 and the luxurious Helmsley
Palace opened mid-September 1980. Together, the couple built a combined
net worth of several billion dollars, with holdings that reached over
100 properties. They lived lavishly and the press reported such
extravagances as a $45,000 silver clock given as a birthday present, a
28-room Connecticut estate, an elegant condo in Palm Beach, and closets
stuffed with shelves of handbags and rows of designer gowns.
The daughter of a milliner, Leona was raised in Brooklyn in a very close
family. After high school, she modeled briefly before marrying attorney
Leo Panzirer in 1938 at her parents’ urging. They had one son and
divorced after the war. Leona went to work as a secretary in the garment
industry. Along the way, she had a tempestuous second and third marriage
and divorce - with the same man – Joseph Lubin, a garment industry
executive for whom she had worked. After her second divorce from Lubin,
she landed a secretarial job with a real estate firm and worked her way
up. With a feel for money, an uncanny ability to handle property, and
great ambition, she was good at what she did from the beginning.
By 1970 Leona had accumulated personal wealth in her thriving career as
a hard-charging real estate broker with one of Harry Helmsley’s firms.
Her tenacity caught his attention. Harry had been married for 33 years
but after meeting Leona, he divorced his first wife. With their marriage
in April 1972 they formed a formidable partnership. Leona ran their
empire with a velvet fist and was widely known among her staff as a
tyrant. After her only son died in March 1982 of a heart attack, she
made life miserable for his widow and child, going so far as to force
their eviction from a Helmsley-owned dwelling. Such actions appeared
mean-spirited and vengeful. When layered with her demand for perfection,
her periodic foul-mouthed piques of temper, and her often-abusive
dealings, her outrageous actions earned her the moniker “The Queen of
Mean.”
In 1989, the Helmsleys were accused of billing $4 million in personal
expenses to their $5 billion hotel and real estate empire, and they were
arraigned on 47 counts of tax evasion. By then, Harry had had a series
of strokes that made him unfit to stand trial; Leona went to trial alone
in June 1989. She was found guilty on August 30, 1989 of 33 counts of
tax evasion, but innocent on the charges of fraud and extortion. She was
given four years in prison and fined $7 million.
On October 26, 1993, she was released from the Danbury, CT Federal
Prison to a halfway house. For three months she was allowed out only for
work and other legitimate purposes. After leaving the halfway house, she
completed 750 hours of community service and three years of probation
before returning to the hotel business. Harry died on January 4, 1997.
In February 2001, the Washington Post reported that New York real estate
empress Leona Helmsley, now 80, forced the resignation of the CEO of her
empire, Patrick Ward, 45. Believing that he harbored romantic feelings
toward her, she ousted him when she discovered that he is gay. It was
not her first arbitrary firing of a subordinate on shaky grounds.
The billionaire died of heart failure on August 20, 2007 at her home in
Greenwich, CT. Always the newsmaker, even in death, she left $12 million
of her $4 billion estate to her pet dog, a Maltese named Trouble.
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