Liesel Pritzker Simmons, stage name Liesel Matthews, is an American former child actress, heiress to the Hyatt Hotels fortune, and philanthropist.
Background
Liesel Anne Pritzker was born in Chicago, Illinois, into the wealthy Pritzker family, of Ukrainian Jewish origin on her father"s side. She was named after the Sound of Music character Liesl von Trapp, the eldest daughter of the seven von Trapp children.
Career
She starred as Sara Crewe in A Little Princess, a 1995 film adaptation of the Frances Hodgson Burnett classic, and as Alice Marshall in Air Force One. Her parents are Irene (née Dryburgh) and Robert Pritzker. She is one of twelve surviving grandchildren of patriarch Anugrah Narayan Pritzker, a financier and industrialist who died in 1986.
The family controls the TransUnion Cr Bureau and the Royal Caribbean Cruise Lincolnshire.
The Pritzker family has been near the top of Forbes magazine"s "America"s Richest Families" list since the list began in 1982. Pritzker graduated from New Trier High School outside of Chicago and enrolled at Columbia University.
Pritzker made her professional stage debut as Scout in a production of To Kill A Mockingbird in Chicago. She went on to star in two other major films.
(2002) She plays the character "Jenn" in Neil Labute"s play, "The Distance from Here," at the Almeida Theatre at King"s Cross in London, England with Enrico Colantioni, Ana Reeder, Amy Ryan, Jason Ritter, and Mark Webber in the cast.
David Leveaux was director In June 2009, she donated $4 million to Opportunity International to help expand microfinance services in Africa.
Membership
She is a member of the wealthy Pritzker family. In early 2005, the parties settled the lawsuit, which followed another suit that began the process of splitting the family fortune 11 ways, resulting in 10 more Pritzkers joining the Forbes 400. The most members of any family.