Lampooning ‘The Queen of Mean’: Representations of Leona Helmsley in Popular Culture
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American billionaire Leona Helmsley (1920–2007) was the most notorious ‘rich bitch’ of the 1980s. A high school dropout from humble roots, through keen business acumen and steely determination she built a real estate and hotel empire that made her a household name. Showing a flair for publicity, Helmsley featured herself in advertisements for her hotel chain, which portrayed her as a ‘queen’ who demanded only the best for her guests. However, reports of her cruel treatment and obscenity-laced firing of employees, along with her famous dictum, ‘We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes,’ soon earned her the moniker ‘Queen of Mean.’ She was eventually convicted of federal income tax evasion and mail fraud in 1989 and served 18 months. Upon her death she left 12 million dollars to her dog, having cut many of her human relatives out of the will. As such, Helmsley has made rich fodder for satirists in popular culture. She was lampooned on several episodes of the comedy show Saturday Night Live, and was an object of ridicule on The Howard Stern Show. In addition, her likeness appeared in Gary Larson’s The Far Side and Bill Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead, and after her death her equally snooty dog ‘Trouble’ appeared in a run of Mother Goose and Grimm comics. Helmsley even inspired the biographical film Leona Helmsley: Queen of Mean (1990). This paper explores the depiction of Helmsley in popular culture as a haughty and tyrannical evil woman, and the more sympathetic image presented in cinematic adaptation of her controversial life and personal and professional intrigues.