Liesel Pritzker Simmons

Liesel Pritzker Simmons (born Liesel Anne Pritzker), stage name Liesel Matthews, is an American heiress and former child actress. 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. She is a member of the wealthy Pritzker family. She is now known as a leader in impact investing and founded the Blue Haven Initiative in 2012 to that end.

Early life and education Pritzker was born on March 14, 1984 in Chicago, Illinois, into the Pritzker family, the daughter of Irene (née Dryburgh) and Robert Pritzker. She is of Jewish origin on her father's side.

Pritzker graduated from New Trier High School outside of Chicago and enrolled at Columbia University, from which she graduated in 2006.

Her father founded The Marmon Group with his brother Jay Pritzker. She is one of twelve surviving grandchildren of patriarch A.N. 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 to 1988. Her cousin is J. B. Pritzker, the 43rd Governor of Illinois. 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 list began in 1982.

Acting career Liesel Pritzker uses the name "Liesel Matthews" as an actress on stage and screen, first to honor her brother Matthew, and second to avoid conflict between her divorced parents about whether she should incorporate her stepfather's name and be known as Liesel Pritzker-Bagley.

Pritzker made her professional stage debut as Scout in a production of To Kill A Mockingbird in Chicago. She won a Theatre World Award for her performance in Vincent in Brixton. She starred in two major films, Alfonso Cuaron's A Little Princess and Wolfgang Petersen's 1997 action thriller Air Force One.

In 2002, Pritzker played 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 Colantoni, Ana Reeder, Amy Ryan, Jason Ritter, and Mark Webber in the cast. David Leveaux was director.

Lawsuit In 2002, Pritzker, then a first-year student at Columbia University, filed a $6 billion lawsuit against her father and eleven older cousins, claiming they had misappropriated money from trusts established for her and her brother Matthew Pritzker. In early 2005, the parties settled the lawsuit, which followed another suit that had begun the process of splitting the family fortune eleven ways. That result placed eleven Pritzkers into the Forbes 400, the most from any single family. Under the settlement, Liesel and Matthew each received roughly million in cash and were given more control over other trusts valued at about million each. In June 2009, she donated $4 million to Opportunity International to help expand microfinance services in Africa.

Personal life Pritzker is married to Ian Simmons; they live in Greater Boston with their two daughters.

Filmography Year Title Role Notes 1995 A Little Princess Sara Crewe Nominated – Young Artist Awards for Best Young Leading Actress in a Feature Film 1997 Air Force One Alice Marshall 2000 Blast Jessie 'Ears'