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On the other hand
Joined: 19 Apr 2003
Location: I walk along the avenue
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 Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 5:11 pm Post subject: Leona Helmsley is dead |
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She was someone I ended up knowing a bit about, even though I was never really that interested in her and didn't seek out information pertaining to her. Kind of typifed a certain era, I suppose, along with Trump et al.
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NEW YORK - Leona Helmsley, the cutthroat hotel magnate whose title as the �queen of mean� was sealed during a tax evasion case in which she was quoted as snarling �only little people pay taxes,� died Monday at age 87.
Helmsley died of heart failure at her summer home in Greenwich, Conn., said her publicist, Howard Rubenstein.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20358637/ |
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flummuxt
Joined: 15 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Mon Aug 20, 2007 7:08 pm Post subject: |
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The New York Times obit is truly breathtaking, jaw dropping, pull no punches frank.
Hard to imagine anyone getting a worse obit. How many people have had the honor of an obit in the New York Times in which they are called a "b-i-t-c-h?" Yep. And they were quoting Helmsley's defense attorney, no less:
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As Mrs. Helmsley was tried, a series of prosecution witnesses described a spiteful, extravagant, foul-mouthed woman who terrified her underlings. In the most celebrated line of testimony, a former Helmsley housekeeper testified that Mrs. Helmsley had once told her, �Only the little people pay taxes.�
Mrs. Helmsley�s lawyer, Gerald A. Feffer, did not deny the truth of such testimony but told jurors not to hold her personality against her, saying, �I don�t believe Mrs. Helmsley is charged in the indictment with being a bit ch.� |
NY Times obits are normally carefully prepared in advance by a staff obit writer who does quite a bit of work, and gets a byline. There's something odd about this one, though. The byline is "By ENNEMY."
Do you get the impression they still detest Leona in the Big Apple?
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August 21, 2007
Leona Helmsley, �Queen� of Hotel Chain, Dies at 87
By ENNEMY
Leona Helmsley, the self-styled hotel queen whose prison term for income tax evasion and fraud was greeted with uncommon approval by a public who regarded her as a 1980s symbol of arrogance and greed, died yesterday at her home in Greenwich, Conn. She was 87.
The cause was heart failure, her longtime spokesman, Howard J. Rubenstein, said.
Mrs. Helmsley came to public attention after her marriage in 1972 to one of New York�s pre-eminent real estate investors and brokers, Harry B. Helmsley, who had divorced his wife of 33 years to marry her. In his heyday, Mr. Helmsley controlled real estate worth $5 billion, including the Empire State Building, the Helmsley Building on Park Avenue and the Flatiron Building. He died in 1997.
Mrs. Helmsley�s real power began to develop in 1980, with her appointment as president of the Helmsley hotels. At the time, the chain ran 30 hotels around the country, including the Park Lane and the St. Moritz in New York, as well as the Harley (now the Helmsley Hotel New York) and the flagship Helmsley Palace.
�It was Harry�s idea,� she said at the time. She added, �He said the best thing about it was that the board of directors meeting was over when we got out of bed.�
Although hotel employees throughout the Helmsley empire were aware of Mrs. Helmsley�s hair-trigger temper and arranged a warning system when she left her apartment on the way to one of the hotels, it was not until she was featured in glossy advertisements for the hotels that she became a household name. The first ads, for the Harley, showed a smiling Mrs. Helmsley proclaiming that she wouldn�t settle for things like skimpy towels, and �why should you?� Occupancy increased to 87 percent from 25 percent, according to Joyce Beber, chairman of Beber Silverstein & Partners, the agency that created the campaign.
The Harley success led to ads for the Helmsley Palace. Mrs. Helmsley, in evening dress in various settings in the hotel, proclaimed, �It�s the only palace in the world where the queen stands guard.� Such advertisements appeared for a decade. They worked, ad executives said, because Mrs. Helmsley and her insistence on first-rate service gave the Helmsley hotels a personality.
Some of the queen�s luster was tarnished in 1986 when court documents and law enforcement officials said she had failed to pay sales taxes in New York on hundreds of thousands of dollars� worth of jewelry from Van Cleef & Arpels. Two senior store officers pleaded guilty to operating a scheme in which customers with out-of-state addresses could have their purchases recorded as being mailed to them.
Mrs. Helmsley, who had received a grant of immunity, could not be charged.
In 1987, a series of articles, based on information from a disgruntled employee, was published in The New York Post. The next year, the Helmsleys were indicted by federal and state authorities on charges that they had evaded more than $4 million in income taxes by fraudulently claiming luxury items for one of their homes as business expenses. The home, Dunnellen Hall in Greenwich, has 28 rooms on 26 acres overlooking Long Island Sound.
In 235 counts in state and federal indictments, the Helmsleys were accused of using money from their hotel and real estate empires to buy a $1 million marble dance floor above a swimming pool, a $210,000 mahogany card table and $500,000 worth of jade objets d�art. Mrs. Helmsley was also charged with defrauding Helmsley stockholders by receiving $83,333 a month in secret consulting fees.
Mr. Helmsley, then 80 and suffering deficiencies in reasoning and memory, was found mentally unfit to stand trial. As Mrs. Helmsley was tried, a series of prosecution witnesses described a spiteful, extravagant, foul-mouthed woman who terrified her underlings. In the most celebrated line of testimony, a former Helmsley housekeeper testified that Mrs. Helmsley had once told her, �Only the little people pay taxes.�
Mrs. Helmsley�s lawyer, Gerald A. Feffer, did not deny the truth of such testimony but told jurors not to hold her personality against her, saying, �I don�t believe Mrs. Helmsley is charged in the indictment with being a bitch.�
Mrs. Helmsley was convicted of evading $1.2 million in federal income taxes but acquitted of scheming to extort kickbacks from contractors and suppliers. Judge John M. Walker Jr. of Federal District Court sentenced a sobbing Mrs. Helmsley to four years in prison and imposed a fine of $7.1 million. She also had to pay some $1.7 million in back taxes.
Mrs. Helmsley began her sentence in 1992 and was freed in 1994 after 18 months in a federal prison in Connecticut, one month in a Midtown Manhattan halfway house and two months confined to her Manhattan penthouse. She was barred from executive involvement in the Helmsley Hotel organization and was supposed to perform 750 hours of community service during the next three years. The sentence was later increased by 150 hours when a federal judge determined that employees had performed some of her service.
They had not done it out of kindness. Mrs. Helmsley had difficulties getting along with her employees for most of her career.
In 2001, she settled a lawsuit out of court with an employee who claimed that Mrs. Helmsley had wrongfully fired him after learning he was gay. In 2003, another employee won a jury award of $11.2 million after alleging he was also wrongfully fired because he was gay. The award was subsequently reduced to $554,000, after which Mrs. Helmsley settled for an undisclosed amount.... |
The use of the term "disgruntled employee" takes on a whole new meaning when used in relation to Leona. All they really needed to say was a Helmsley employee. After all, were there any employees who were not disgruntled? |
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flummuxt
Joined: 15 Mar 2007
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| Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 4:52 am Post subject: |
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Leona sure knows how to rub it in.
Just when you thought you've heard everything, it turns out Leona's final resting place is a $1.4 million, 1,300 square feet (36.5 pyong) mausoleum.
How many of us "little people" even have a house that big, or expensive?
On the other hand, I'd rather have my sanity and my dignity than trade it for all Helmsley's money and enmity.
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Leona's Final Property Has a Great View
By LARRY McSHANE
The Associated Press
Tuesday, August 21, 2007; 4:07 PM
NEW YORK -- The Queen of Mean's last property is fit for a king.
Leona Helmsley, for years the imperious head of a multibillion-dollar real estate and hotel empire, will spend eternity in a $1.4 million suburban mausoleum with a magnificent view, alongside her beloved husband, Harry. She previously moved her husband's remains after becoming dissatisfied with his old neighborhood.
"You know what they say: location, location, location," said Philip Zegarelli, mayor of Sleepy Hollow, the quiet Westchester County town where Helmsley will be buried this week. "It's a very nice setting, well picked and well positioned."
The ornate granite mausoleum boasts 1,300 square feet, with a dozen Doric columns and stained-glass windows re-creating the Manhattan skyline _ including the Empire State Building, once the crown jewel of the Helmsley properties.
The Pocantico River gurgles past the Helmsley holding in the tree-lined Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, a historic 19th-century locale where Washington Irving and Andrew Carnegie were joined last week by philanthropist Brooke Astor.
Helmsley, who died Monday at her Connecticut home, became known as a hardhearted harpy with a hair-trigger temper after her 1988 indictment and subsequent conviction for tax evasion, when a Helmsley employee quoted her as snarling: "Only the little people pay taxes."
Harry Helmsley came to Sleepy Hollow, 14 miles north of New York City, last year after Leona engaged in an ugly battle with Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx, where the real estate magnate was originally buried in 1997.
The expansive family mausoleum at Woodlawn was memorably described as a "tomb with a view," but the sweeping vista disappeared when a public mausoleum _ potentially filled with those "little people" who paid taxes _ went up nearby three years ago.
An irate Leona called the new construction "a disgrace," and resolved to relocate the remains of her husband and her son, Jay Panzirer.
She purchased a piece of land in Sleepy Hollow to construct a new mausoleum _ and quickly alienated her husband's new, living neighbors. A wooded section of the cemetery was stripped clean of trees in summer 2005.
The new construction lacked permits, and village officials quickly shut down the project, Zegarelli said.
"We tried to be amenable," Zegarelli said. "There are still procedures to go through, whether you're dead or alive _ no offense, but it still has to be done."
The two sides worked out their differences _ fines were paid and donations were made by the Helmsley group to repair some of the damage. Last August, the mausoleum was approved for the reinterment.
Zegarelli said the Helmsley mausoleum already is a popular spot for visitors touring the historic cemetery, which has 45,000 permanent residents. It's easier to locate than Carnegie's grave, with its simple Celtic cross, and a reflection of the Helmsleys' lifelong pursuit of quality real estate.
"You can't take it with you," the mayor said. "But this is certainly an image of the Helmsley style and elegance, the New York skyline, and her pieces of property." |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 7:11 pm Post subject: |
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Helmsley leaves her dog $12 million in trust
'Trouble' is top dog; 2 of her 4 grandkids get nothing; billions go to charity
Updated: 9:15 a.m. ET Aug. 29, 2007
NEW YORK - Leona Helmsley�s dog will continue to live an opulent life, and then be buried alongside her in a mausoleum. But two of Helmsley�s grandchildren got nothing from the late luxury hotelier and real estate billionaire�s estate.
Helmsley left her beloved white Maltese, named Trouble, a $12 million trust fund, according to her will, which was made public Tuesday in surrogate court.
She also left millions for her brother, Alvin Rosenthal, who was named to care for Trouble in her absence, as well as two of four grandchildren from her late son Jay Panzirer � so long as they visit their father�s grave site once each calendar year. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 7:42 pm Post subject: |
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ha ha, yeah i read that this morning. those 2 kids must have really pissed her off.  |
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Alyallen
Joined: 29 Mar 2004
Location: The 4th Greatest Place on Earth = Jeonju!!!
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| Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2007 7:46 pm Post subject: |
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| bucheon bum wrote: |
| ha ha, yeah i read that this morning. those 2 kids must have really pissed her off. |
Especially since all 4 grandkids have the same father...I wonder if the two left out of the will have different mothers from the other two and that's why they were left out?
That's just stone cold...but at least a lot of it went to charity... |
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Gatsby
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 12:06 am Post subject: |
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No she's not.
Her hate lives on.
And on.
And on. |
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cbclark4
Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Location: Masan
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| Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 4:51 pm Post subject: |
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A long and wicked life followed by five minutes of perfect grace gets you into Heaven. An equally long life of decent living and good works followed by one outburst of taking the name of the Lord in vain - then have a heart attack at that moment and be damned for eternity. Is that the system?
{R.A.H.} |
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