Leona Helmsley

Leona Helmsley was born Leona Mindy Rosenthal in New York City on July 4, 1920. The daughter of a local hat manufacturer, Helmsley graduated from New York City public schools and then enrolled in the English program at the city's Hunter College. The ambitious and attractive young woman decided after her sophomore year, however, that there were quicker ways to achieve success, so she left Hunter for the more profitable profession of modeling. After working as a model for a number of years--Helmsley would be one of several Chesterfield cigarette girls to grace that company's print ads--she married attorney Leo Panzirer in 1939, and had a son, Jay. Helmsley and Panzirer divorced, after their son was older and at this time the 42-year-old Leona was forced to reenter the job market. In 1962 she got a job as a rece

Soon after Harry's death, Leona began making plans to sell off various properties. She sold the Harley chain of hotels to an investment group, and sold the remainder of her stake in Manhattan's Flatiron Building in 1998. Several other buildings have gone on the market as well. Helmsley has sold so much property since 1997 that some analysts expect she plans to rid herself of almost all her remaining property except the Empire State Building and the Helmsley hotels.

Two years later, Leona was offered a position as vice president at Brown, Harris, Stevens, a subsidiary of the Helmsley-Spear property management. The company's co-owner, Harry Helmsley, was attracted to much more than Leona's professional abilities; within a year Harry who had begun his own successful career in New York City real estate in 1925 as an office boy and rent-collector--divorced his first wife of 33 years and made his new vice president his new wife.

A woman of clear contrasts, Helmsley has throughout her career been portrayed by the press as ruthless, difficult to deal with, and dishonest. This version of Helmsley, however, remains in stark contrast to the loving, affectionate wife that interviewers would sometimes uncover if they asked about her relationship with her husband. Although Harry was many years older than his second wife, not even the media could successfully paint her as a gold digger. "Other men wouldn't put up with my getting all the attention," she once told New York magazine in praise of her beloved Harry. And when asked about the best part of her job, the hard-nosed businesswoman would answer, "At 4:30 or so when Harry picks me up." Despite the controversy that surrounded them, after Harry's death in 1997, a resilient Leona would characterize their life together in one word: "magical."

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