A tale of two women

I wonder if someone would have the guts to write such a story BEFORE the subjects leave this life? E.g. (slight wording changes to the original story):

A Lesson of Legacy
06:21 AM CDT on Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Two iconic New York women will likely pass away within the next few years, if not this year. Brooke Astor, the doyenne of high society and philanthropy, is 105, and Leona Helmsley, the real estate magnate infamous for her title "The Queen of Mean," is 87. The difference between the two is a life lesson to us all.

Mrs. Astor married into the famed New York family and its immense fortune. She is a Fifth Avenue aristocrat who has given vast sums to museums, libraries, churches and programs to help the needy. As gracious as she is generous, Mrs. Astor would have her chauffeur drive her to ghettos to consider requests for grants. She would cheerfully eat from paper plates whatever her modest hosts served, though dressed to the nines. "People expect to see Mrs. Astor, not some dowdy old lady, and I don't intend to disappoint them," she once said.

Mrs. Helmsley established herself as a player in New York's cutthroat real estate business and then hit the jackpot when property mogul Harry Helmsley left his wife of 33 years to marry her. In the 1980s, she became the public face of Helmsley Hotels, trading off her finicky reputation. She also became a public face of the era's vulgar new rich, her vicious treatment of anyone she thought beneath her a tabloid staple.

When she was tried for federal tax evasion, her lawyer was reduced to pleading, "I don't believe Mrs. Helmsley is charged in the indictment with being a bitch." The Queen of Mean was convicted and sent to prison.

We cannot know the hearts of either woman; we can only judge their public lives. By that standard, the warmth and gratitude so many have and have expressed for Mrs. Astor constitutes a verdict; for Mrs. Helmsley, there is mostly silence and, among the charitably inclined, pity.

To whom much is given, much is expected. What these remarkable women have made of their good fortune is the lesson of their lives and the true measure of their worth. Mrs. Astor will enter into history and eternity rich beyond measure. Mrs. Helmsley, a pauper.

I can just hear her now: "Hey, I can't die! Only little people die!"

I never met either Leona Helmsley or Brooke Astor, so (like most people) I am completely unquaified to judge what kind of person either was. To use a cliche, all I know about either woman is what I read in the papers.

I never hated Leona as much as I gather I was supposed to, because I felt sorry for her. I think that, like Martha Stewart, she spent time in prison NOT because of real crimes she may/may not have committed, but simply because she was perceived as a rich bitch. People hated her NOT because of anything she did, but because of who they perceived her to be. People look at Leona or Martha and immediately say to themselves, "That bitch thinks she's better than me. She deserves to get some kind of comeuppance."

Look, Leona Helmsley and others in her tax bracket may very well THINK they're better than "the little people," but I find it extremely hard to believe she ever actually SAID it. Assume for a moment that she never actually said it (or that her servants never heard her say it). Without that quote, Leona Helmseley would ahve been just one of many rich people hit with a tax audit. She'd have paid a hefty fine and no one would have heard about it or thought twice about it.

Instead, she did jail time, purely because a lot of people resent wealth. And last time I looked, envy was a deadly sin, just like avarice.

Thanks Ossicle. Brooke Astor, at 105, was not beautiful in the Vogue magazine sense. But her weathered old face radiated what was in her heart. All the more so with Mother Teresa.

Astorian, you're wrong about Leona. She went to jail because she evaded taxes.

Jn,

Your own generosity is lacking here and making you an ineffective champion. People are not criticizing Helmsley because it is very fashionable, they are doing so because of the decades-long trail of verified reports of vile and illegal things she did.

If your report is true, then it provides readers with a reason to wonder whether there was more good to her than has been widely reported. I can't think of much else to say about it.

-O

I am, unfortunately. Try to smile.

Stilted prose, anyone? Cliff Notes are available in the lobby!

The IRS and Department of Justice have a long-standing policy of going after rich and/or famous tax cheats in order to encourage voluntary compliance by the public at large. The theory is that some people think the rich get away with not paying taxes, justifying an "ordinary" person's decision to do likewise. Making an example of someone like Leona Helmsley is designed to counter any impression that the rich get away without paying their taxes. Her treatment was not in the least unusual, IMO. I've been a tax lawyer for 20 years, so I'm not just blowing smoke, btw.

O,
My generosity, as you call it is not generoisty at at all. Rather it merely is stating an objective truth about a woman whom all too many want to view in a particualr way. Was she the warm and cuddly type? Appernetly not so in business. However, I think she was what we all really are. Human. Warts and all. Mrs. H. did not have the opportunity (and perhaps did not want it) to commit her sins in private like most of us do. I am not nominating her for cannoization here.
BTW the comparison to Castro and Quaddafi is simply uncalled for.

FWIW, columnist Paul Craig Roberts investigated the case and decided that Leona Helmsley was not guilty, and was in fact a victim of prosecutorial abuse.

Interestingly, the prosecuting attorney was Rudy Giuliani.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_n22_v45/ai_14667462/print

http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts208.html