BEIJING,
Aug. 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley, who went to
prison for tax evasion and was dubbed "Queen of Mean," died of heart
failure at her summer home in Greenwich, Connecticut, aged 87, her
publicist said Monday.
She and fourth husband Harry Helmsley owned such sumptuous
properties as the Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue, a block from Saint Patrick's
Cathedral, the Park Lane and the New York Helmsley.
Helmsley 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. She helped him amass a commercial and
residential real estate empire worth billions.
At the couple's zenith, Harry Helmsley was worth 5 billion
dollars. His company controlled some of New York's finest hotels and managed the
Empire State Building.
"Leona was a great businesswoman in her own right,"
publicist Howard 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."
But behind the scenes she was considered arrogant,
quick-tempered and prone to shouting and firing employees on the spot.
Leona was convicted of evading 1.7 million dollars in
taxes and sent to prison in 1992 in Connecticut, where she served 18 months.
"I've done nothing wrong. I'm innocent. My only crime is
that I'm Leona Helmsley," she told reporters at the time of her trial.
A former housekeeper testified during the trial that she
heard Helmsley say: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes."
She denied having said it, but the famous quote
became her hallmark, following her the rest of her life.
The case was the basis for a 1990 made-for-television
movie "Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean."
(Agencies)
