Liesel Matthews

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Liesel Matthews (born Liesel Pritzker, March 14, 1984, Chicago, Illinois), an American heiress and actress. Pritzker is a heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune and was a child actress, starring as Sara Crewe in A Little Princess, a 1995 film adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic.

1 Family Background
2 Education
3 Lawsuit
4 Stage Work
5 Filmography
6 External link

[edit] Family Background

Pritzker was born into the wealthy Pritzker family. She is one of twelve surviving grandchildren of patriarch Abram Nicholas Pritzker, a financier and industrialist who died in 1986. Her uncle, Jay Pritzker, is the founder of the Hyatt Hotel chain, and owned Braniff Airlines from 1983-1988. The family controls the TransUnion Credit Bureau and the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. The Pritzker family has been near the top of Forbes magazine's "America's Richest Families" list since the magazine began in 1982. Liesel uses the stage name "Matthews" after her brother, Matthew, after a battle between her parents regarding whether she should be credited as Liesel Pritzker-Bagley (Bagley being her step-father's name) or simply Liesel Pritzker.

[edit] Education

Liesel graduated from New Trier High School outside of Chicago and enrolled at Columbia University.

Liesel presently attends The French Culinary Institute in New York.

[edit] Lawsuit

During her freshman year of college, Pritzker and her brother Matthew Pritzker filed a lawsuit against her father and the Pritzker family claiming her father had misappropriated money from trusts established for herself and her brother.

In early 2005, the parties settled the lawsuit. The details of the settlement have not been made public, but it's believed Pritzker and her brother will both receive nearly $500 million. This would make Liesel and Matthew Pritzker the richest young adults in the United States.