Margaux Mirkin, the retired daughter of the founder of Budget Rent a Car, was choked and beaten by a pair of masked thieves who broke into her mansion in the Hollywood Hills on Thursday night and made off with cash and jewelry, according to reports.
The two attackers also reportedly “smashed” Mirkin’s jaw during the burglary, which took place around 8 p.m. at her seven-bedroom home on Lookout Mountain Avenue, the Los Angeles Police Department told local station NBC4.
Mirkin, whose age has been reported as both 68 and 70, was rushed to the hospital and eventually released. The burglars took off in a white Honda Accord, police said.
A neighbor told the NBC affiliate the home, which is isolated at the top of a dead-end street with no streetlights, was the “perfect street for a break in.”
Mirkin’s father, Morris Mirkin, founded Budget Rent a Car in 1958 in Los Angeles and sold the successful company a decade later. It is now part of the Avis Car Rental family.
Mirkin’s home house spans roughly 7,280 square feet and also features five bathrooms and a three-car garage.
The thieves took cash and jewelry, including some pieces that Mirkin’s husband gave to her before he died in a Laurel Canyon house fire in November 2024, neighbors told NBC.
A neighbor named Lee Bridges, told the California Post that residents were shocked by the violent break-in in an area where serious crime is rare.
“It’s very unusual for the Hollywood Hills,” Bridges said Saturday. “Our crime rate tends to be people breaking into mailboxes. It’s not normal to have a home invasion.”
Bridges described Mirkin as a senior who kept to herself and did not draw attention to her wealth.
“Margaux is just a nice local lady. She’s retired. She’s rather private,” Bridges told the Post, adding that “she’s not flashy in any way, not the kind of person who’s very flamboyant or flashes her wealth around.”
Mirkin has owned the home since February 2003, according to the outlet.
Mirkin was an active participant in her father’s business, the Daily Mail reported.
At the age of 24 she was running her father’s Beverly Hills division, which featured luxury and high-end sports cars for rent.
In a 1982 profile, Mirkin described herself as a “fairy godmother” who was helping her customers “escape from reality for a while and live the dream that is LA.”
Most recently, Mirkin was married to William de Rothschild, who died at the age of 87 in what was ruled an accidental house fire. They had married in 1999 in Nevada, according to previous news reports.
Mirkin’s husband claimed to be a member of the prominent Rothschild banking family in Europe, but it was later revealed he had changed his name from “Richard Kaufman” in 1985 and he did not appear in the Rothschild family tree.
“I am 100 percent sure my brother was a Kauffman and not a Rothschild,” his brother Richard told the Los Angeles Times in 2024.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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