Property tycoon whose ostentatious lifestyle gained her notoriety

Leona Helmsley, who died on 20 August, 2007, aged 87, was known as the “Queen of Mean,” due to her tyrannical methods of running her husband’s hotel empire.

The property tycoon, who gained notoriety in the 1980s, led a colourful life, surviving a punctured lung from a stab wound and escaping life imprisonment for income tax evasion and other offenses.

She had a string of unsuccessful marriages, which could be perceived as further evidence of her formidable reputation, which was accompanied by her caricature image of a gravelly-voiced workaholic.

Many witnesses testified against her when she was put on trial, and she ended up serving 18 months in prison, before being released in January 1994.

Born Lena Rosenthol on 20 July, 1920, she was the daughter of poor Polish Jews who had just arrived in Marbletown, north of New York City. She refused to speak publicly about her past but would tell people that she was brought up in Brooklyn where she went to college and modelled - claims that were never verfied by records.

She changed her name to Roberts before marrying first husband Leo E. Panzirer, who was a lawyer. After they divorced she was married a further two times to Jospeh Lubin who worked in the fashion industry.

All the while she was driven to succeed in property, starting off as a secretary at a real state agency, before becoming a broker.

She was finally able to mix her personal life with her work ambitions when she was employed by Harry Helmsley, one of America’s richest men, and married him. He left his wife of 33 years to marry Leona in 1972.

The following year the newly-weds were attacked in their Florida home by a burglar and Mrs Helmsley was stabbed.

This didn’t extinguish her love of the good life however, and she spent her husband’s money ostentatiously, buying a private jet to entertain their New York peers.

In 1980, Mrs Helmsley’s dream career was fulfilled when he appointed her president of his 26-hotel empire. However, this increase of power proved to be her downfall, as her disgruntled employees, whom she treated badly, would testify against her in 1989.

Rudolph Giuliani, who was later Mayor of New York, discovered that the Helmsleys had disguised $4 million of personal spending as business expenditure and prosecuted her.

She stood trial alone as her husband was unfit, having suffered a series of slight stokes. She was found guilty on 30 counts, but was able to enjoy her fortune soon after prison when her husband died in 1997 and left her his estate, worth several billion dollars.

After Mrs Helmsley’s prosecution, Donald Trump felt moved to write to Mr. Helmsley, labelling her "a disgrace to the human race." The former mayor of New York Ed Koch also had his say, calling her "a wicked witch."

At the time of the trial, a former employee claimed to hear her say: “We don’t pay taxes. Only little people pay taxes.”

Although she denied saying it, the words were to be associated with her for a long time thereafter.