Vintage Glamour: Queen of Mean: Leona Helmsley

Leona Mindy Rosenthal, the lady who sneered at the premise that all men are created equal, was born on July 4th in Brooklyn. On father Morris's hat-making job, her parents, Russian/Polish Jewish immigrants, battled to raise their four children. She wedded attorney Leo Panzirer in 1940, giving in to parental pressure, and relocated to Flatbush with her sole child, Jay Robert Panzirer. She married, divorced, and then remarried entrepreneur Joe Lubin, after the pair split in 1950. Despite their two tries, nuptials did not offer lasting holy matrimony.

Leona moved in with her mother after finding herself in the unpleasant predicament of being a single mother with no means of income. Leona accepted a position at a New York real estate agency to improve herself, and she rose to become one of the city's most successful female brokers, selling more than just prime residences.

Portrait of Leona Helmsley in formal dress, 1983

Leona Helmsley, circa 1989 in New York City

The landing of Harry Helmsley, the owner of the Empire State Building and other Manhattan jewels, was Leona's triumph. In his sixties, Harry Helmsley had developed two passions: business and dancind. He was a stooping Fred Astaire on the dance floor in a tux, but a bland number cruncher at work in a generic suit. Leona was ensconced in a Helmsley holding, Gallery House, that doubled as an expensive love lair a few weeks later, and the two married in his extravagant penthouse with a view of Central Park in 1972. Leona Mindy Rosenthal of Flatbush was a bona fide billionaire at the age of 52.

The Helmsleys were dubbed the "First Couple of the Big Apple" since they controlled the majority of the city. They ruled from their 10,000-square-foot duplex, which had a living room on each floor, a swimming pool, a greenhouse, and a terrace with a panoramic view of Manhattan. They also possessed Dunellen Hall, a twenty-eight-room estate in Connecticut, a lakefront townhouse in Palm Beach, and a mountainside retreat in Phoenix.

The annual March 4th celebration for Henry's anniversary was an over-the-top event where Manhattan's beau monde, including Barbara Walters, Frank Sinatra, and Laurence Rockefeller, gathered and danced to the Eubie Blake song "I'm Just Wild About Harry." In retaliation, Harry lighted his Empire State Building in red, white, and blue on the bicentennial Fourth of July. His gesture wasn't in honor of America's freedom, but on a far more joyous occasion: his wife's birthday. He compared the expense of the light display to a piece of jewelry, saying it was less than a hundred thousand dollars.

Leona attends a party in the lobby of the Ritz Carlton to
celebrate the publication of Earl Blackwell's 'Celebrity
Register', December 1985

Leona and Harry Helmsley, photographed by Ron Galella

Leona in March 1990

As a final touch of affection, Harry dubbed a luxury hotel purchase the "Harley," a combination of their names. And, if that wasn't enough, he made his wife a key figure in the marketing campaign for his Helmsley Palace Hotel business.

The queen was a tyrant of the nonbenevolent sort in private. She was a royal headache because she was a perfectionist who held her legion of staff to her strict standards. It was her equivalent of "Off with their heads!" for any violations. During her blitzkrieg examinations, she vented her rage on unsuspecting victims with verbal attacks laced with the kind of vitriol reserved for warmongers by God. When she left her penthouse on her way to one of her hotels, her frightened staffers established an alarm system to inform each other. She was dubbed "the Lady Macbeth of the hostel sector" by a columnist.

The country, it seemed, had lost interest in Harry—and Harry's wife. Workers complained to The Post about their bosses' unusual practice of charging personal belongings as hotel expenses, including a million-dollar marble dance floor, a $130,000 sound system, a $45,000 silver clock, a $210,000 mahogany table, and even a twelve-dollar bodysuit.

One man compared the mob to “Yankee Stadium on the day the World Series tickets go on sale” because so many dissatisfied people lined up to testify—about everything from delaying salaries to cheating at mahjong. She was dubbed "the Wicked Witch of the West" by Mayor Ed Koch, and Donald Trump branded her "a nasty, horrible human being." Uproarious applause erupted from the peasants when the guilty decision was announced, and the police led the weeping Marie Antoinette away to serve twenty-one months in jail. The punishment was executed on April 15, 1992, Tax Day, which was the deadline for Leona to report to prison.

Leona at home in the Park Lane Hotel, February 1990

Mayor Koch with Leona and Harry Helmsley, September 1980

Following her 1994 discharge, the pair remained secluded, primarily dwelling at their Scottsdale, Arizona, mansion, as erstwhile acquaintances were no longer so enthusiastic about Harry. When Harry died in 1997, Leona was heartbroken, declaring, "My fairy tale is finished," and wandering her vast properties alone. His will left her with a real estate empire that encompassed most of Manhattan's skyline. Following Jay's death from a heart attack, her relationship with her daughter-in-law, Mimi Panzirer, deteriorated when Leona evacuated her and Leona's own grandson, stating that the firm owned the land and Jay was no longer an employee of Helmsley.

Leona had never been a dog person; once, she informed a man that his dog would make a great coat. Nevertheless, Leona bought a four-pound Maltese named Trouble because she was in need of affection. The dog was observed leaving the pet store in a Mercedes Benz stretch limo, and the two were never seen apart after that. The puppy was a tiny menace who bit people and ate gourmet food. With a diamond-encrusted collar around her neck, the princess, as she wanted her puppy to be named, roamed the corridors.

She left most of her $4 billion estates to her own charitable trust, $15 million to her brother, $10 million each to two of her four grandchildren. The other two received nothing (allegedly because they did not name any of their children after their grandfather Harry). However, she did set aside $12 million for her dog Trouble.