fresh start
Classic 90s Christmas movie star unrecognisable 28 years after hit film, $60bn lawsuit and quitting fame
Her life was just as eventful off screen before she moved to India to escape the limelight and family dramas
SHE became a household name in the hit 90s film A Little Princess.
But these days Liesel Matthews looks a far cry from the role that made her famous when she was just nine days old.
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Now she is 39, and lives in Greater Boston, Massachusettes with husband Ian Simmons, who she married in 2011.
She goes by her marital name of Liesel Pritzker Simmons – leaving her child star past well and truly behind.
In A Little Princess she played the role of a young girl, called Sara Crewe, who is sent to boarding school in New York, only to be later kept as a servant in the attic.
The movie, which saw her entertain friends with her positivity and stories, was beloved when it was released in 1995 and was even nominated for two Academy Awards.
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But despite her huge success, Liesel’s acting career was very short lived and is thought to have only starred in two more films - Air Force One (1997) and Blast (2000).
Her real life was however just as eventful as a movie because she was an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune which was estimated to be around $15 billion.
When she was studying at Colombia University that same year, Liesel and her brother filed a six billion dollar lawsuit against her father and eleven older cousins.
They claimed the family had misappropriated their trust funds, and the case proved successful.
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The lawsuit resulted in Liesel receiving a $500 million payout according to , and she left America soon after to head to India, similar to her character in A Little Princess.
She spent her time and as a yoga teacher in a program designed to rehabilitate heroin addicts and also volunteered in a nursery.
Speaking previously about getting away from it all, Liesel told Forbes: "When you go someplace where you're completely foreign to anybody, you're just there.
"You're seen for who you are and not for all of the Googling behind you, so to speak."
Liesel has since dedicated her post-acting career to setting up a number of philanthropic firms such as the Young Ambassadors for Opportunity (YAO).
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