Oft-scorned hotelier Leona Helmsley is dead after suffering heart failure at the age of 87. Helmsley was renowned as a mercurial, hard-nosed business woman with a noted distaste for giving the government its slice ("Only little people pay taxes"), for which she ultimately served an 18-month jail stint on a tax evasion conviction. A 2007 Forbes article listed her as valued at $2.5 billion. [Reuters]
