US:Leona Helmsley, the "Queen of Mean", whose legendary cruelty towards her employees and her 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 downfall in 1989 when she was found guilty of tax evasion and served 18 months in jail.
It was a housekeeper there who revealed during the trial the phrase that was afterwards to hang over the hotel magnate: "We don't pay taxes," the housekeeper said her employer once told her, "only the little people pay taxes." Helmsley, with her husband Harry, created an empire worth billions - including the Empire State Building, the Park Lane Hotel and a 100-seat private jet with bedroom attached - only to be brought as low as a New York prison cell.
Her lawyer, defending her during the 1989 trial, portrayed her as a "tough bitch". When the judge handed out sentence, he said her conduct had been the "product of naked greed. You persisted in the arrogant belief that you were above the law."