Early Life
Leona Helmsley, daughter of a hatmaker, was born Lena Mindy Rosenthal in Marbletown, New York, to Polish Jewish immigrants, Ida (née Popkin), a homemaker, and Morris Rosenthal, a hatmaker. Her family moved to Brooklyn while she was still a girl, and moved six more times before settling in Manhattan. She dropped out of Abraham Lincoln High School to seek her fortune. In a short time, she changed her name several times—from Lee Roberts, Mindy Roberts and Leni Roberts. Eventually, she decided on Leona Mindy Roberts. She legally changed her surname to Roberts. She was a chain smoker, consuming several packs a day. Helmsley would later claim that she appeared in billboard ads for Chesterfield cigarettes, but her claim remains entirely unsubstantiated.
Her first husband was attorney Leo Panzirer, whom she divorced in 1952. Their only son was Jay (1940–1982), who had four children with his wife, Mimi. Leona was twice married to and divorced from her second husband, garment industry executive Joseph Lubin. After a brief stint at a sewing factory, she joined a New York real estate firm, where she eventually became vice-president.
Read more about this topic: Leona Helmsley
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“We early arrive at the great discovery that there is one mind common to all individual men: that what is individual is less than what is universal ... that error, vice and disease have their seat in the superficial or individual nature.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Why not make an end of it all?... My life is a succession of griefs and bitter feelings.... What is death?... A very small matter, when all is said; only a fool would be concerned about it.”
—Stendhal [Marie Henri Beyle] (1783–1842)