(AP)
Updated: 2007-08-21 09:11

In 1980 he made her president of Helmsley Hotels, a subsidiary which at the time operated more than two dozen hotels in 10 states, including the Park Lane, St. Moritz and Palace in New York and the Harley Hotels. Harley was a contraction of Harry and Leona.

For the better part of a decade, a glamorous Leona Helmsley smiled out of magazine ads dressed in luxurious gowns and tiara, advertising that the Palace was the only hotel in the world "where the Queen stands guard."

The press portrayed them as an adoring couple, with Leona calling Harry "gorgeous one" and "pussycat." Friends and acquaintances described her as generous, charming, playful and having a good sense of humor.

She threw parties on his birthdays at which guests wore buttons that said "I'm Just Wild About Harry" and he wore a button that said "I'm Harry." The couple would dance until dawn.

On July 4, 1976, Harry Helmsley lit the Empire State Building in red, white and blue - a tribute not to the Bicentennial, but to his wife's birthday. It cost $100,000 - "less than a necklace," he said.

But the Helmsleys' charmed life ended in 1988 when they were hit with tax-evasion charges.

Harry's health and memory were so poor that he was judged incompetent to stand trial. His wife, after an eight-week trial, was convicted of evading $1.2 million in federal taxes by billing Helmsley businesses for personal expenses ranging from her underwear to $3 million worth of renovations to the Dunellen Hall estate in Connecticut.

Sentenced to four years in prison, she tried to avoid jail by pleading that Harry might die without her at his side. Her doctor said that prison might kill her because of high blood pressure and other problems. (At a March 1992 hearing, the judge rejected that argument and even ordered her to surrender on April 15 - tax day.)

Helmsley served a total of 21 months and was released in January 1994. She had 150 hours added to her 750 hours of community service because employees had done some of the chores for her.

Several top executives at Helmsley companies said their firings coincided with her release. She maintained she couldn't have fired them because she had given up her management post - as a convicted felon she was barred from running enterprises with liquor licenses, such as hotels. The State Liquor Authority said it had no evidence that she was still in charge.

In 1996, two of Harry Helmsley's longtime partners accused his wife of scheming to loot the main corporation, Helmsley-Spear Inc. They said she was stripping away company assets to avoid paying $11.4 million owed them and to make the company worthless, because Harry Helmsley had given them an option to buy Helmsley-Spear at a bargain price upon his death.

After he died a few months later, the dispute with the partners was eventually settled and control of Helmsley-Spear was turned over to them. The settlement freed Leona Helmsley to sell off other assets.

The Helmsleys' charitable gifts may have run to the tens of millions, but people who dealt with them spoke bitterly of being stiffed.

One of them, a painting contractor, said Leona Helmsley wouldn't pay an $88,000 bill for work on Dunellen Hall because she was entitled to a "commission" for the $800,000 worth of other jobs he got in Helmsley buildings.

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