Leona Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean" whose legendary cruelty towards her employees and disdain for "little people" became the unacceptable face of New York high society in Ronald Reagan's 1980s, died yesterday of a heart attack aged 87.
She died in Dunnellen Hall, the summer house in Connecticut that played a central role in her very public downfall in 1989 when she was found guilty of tax evasion and forced to serve 18 months in jail.
It was a housekeeper at the hall who revealed in the course of the trial the phrase that was to hang over the hotel magnate for the rest of her life: "We don't pay taxes," the housekeeper said her employer once told her. "Only the little people pay taxes."
Read Full Article »