Danielle Fernande Dominique
Schuelein-Steel (born August 14, 1947, New York City
) better known as Danielle Steel,
is an American
romantic novelist and author of mainstream dramas.
Best known for her mainstream
drama
novels, Steel has sold more than 550 million
copies of her books (as of 2005) worldwide and is the seventh best
selling writer of all time . Her novels have been on the
New York Times bestseller
list for over 390 consecutive weeks and 22 have been adapted
for
television.
Biography
Early years
Her parents were John Schulein Steel, a descendant of the founders
of
Löwenbräu beer, and Norma da
Câmara Stone Reis, the daughter of a Portuguese diplomat.
Steel
spent much of her early childhood in France
, where from
an early age she was included in her parents' dinner parties,
giving her an opportunity to observe the habits and lives of the
wealthy and famous. Her parents divorced when she was seven,
however, and she was raised primarily in New York City by her
father, rarely seeing her mother, who had moved to Europe.
Steel started writing stories as a child, and by her late teens had
begun writing poetry.
A graduate of the Lycée Français de New
York, class of 1965, she studied literature design and fashion
design, first at Parsons School of Design
in 1963 and then at New York University
from 1963-1967.
Early career
In 1965, when she was only 18, Steel married banker Claude-Eric
Lazard While a young wife, and still attending New York University,
Steel began writing, completing her first manuscript the following
year, when she was nineteen. After the birth of their daughter,
Beatrix, in 1968,
Steel became a copywriter for an advertising
agency, then worked for a public relations agency in San
Francisco
. A client was highly impressed with her
press releases and encouraged her to concentrate on writing
books.
Personal life
After nine years of marriage, Steel's relationship with Lazard
ended. Shortly before their divorce was finalized her first novel,
Going Home, was published. The novel contained many of the
themes that her writing would become known for, including a focus
on family issues and the impact of actions taken in the past on
events of the present or future.
Steel married again, in a jailhouse ceremony with Danny Zugelder.
The marriage ended quickly and Zugelder was later convicted of a
series of rapes. Steel married her third husband, heroin-addicted
William Toth, the day after her divorce from Zugelder was final,
while she was 8 1/2 months pregnant with Toth's child. This
marriage ended within two years, and Steel successfully petitioned
to have Toth's parental rights to their son Nicholas
terminated.
Drawing on her own personal romantic difficulties, Steel wrote
Passion's Promise, about a socialite who falls in love
with an ex-con, after the demise of her second marriage. Shortly
after she divorced Toth, Steel released
Remembrance, in
which the husband is a heroin addict.
Steel married for the fourth time in 1981, to vintner John Traina.
Traina subsequently adopted Steel's son Nick and gave him his
family name, and Steel adopted his two sons Trevor and Todd.
Together they had an additional five children, Samantha, Victoria,
Vanessa, Maxx and Zara.
Coincidentally, beginning with her marriage to Traina in 1981,
Steel has been a near-permanent fixture on the
New York
Times hardcover and paperback bestsellers lists. In 1989, she
was listed in the
Guinness Book of World
Records for having a book on the
New York Times
Bestseller List for the most consecutive weeks of any
author—381 consecutive weeks at that time. Since her first book was
published, every one of her novels has hit bestseller lists in
paperback, and each one released in hardback has also been a
hardback bestseller. During this time Steel also contributed to her
first non-fiction work.
Having a Baby was published in
1984 and featured a chapter by Steel about suffering through
miscarriage. The same year she also
published a book of poetry,
Love: Poems.
Steel also ventured into children's fiction, penning a series of 10
illustrated books for young readers. These books, known as the "Max
and Martha" series, aim to help children face real life problems:
new baby, new school, loss of loved one, etc. In addition, Steel
has authored the "Freddie" series. These 4 books address other real
life situations: first night away from home, trip to the doctor,
etc.
Determined to spend as much time as possible with her own children,
Steel often wrote at night, making do with only four hours of
sleep, so that she could be with her children during the day. Steel
is a prolific author, often releasing several books per year. Each
book takes 2 1/2 years to complete,, so Steel has developed an
ability to juggle up to five projects at once, researching one book
while outlining another, then writing and editing additional
books.
Nicholas Traina
In 1993 Steel sued a writer who intended to disclose in her book
that her son Nick was fathered by William Toth instead of her
then-current husband John Traina, despite the fact that adoption
records are sealed in California. A San Francisco judge made a
highly unusual ruling in ordering the lawsuit sealed and kept
secret after its filing. The order was later overturned by the
California Supreme Court, who ruled that because Steel was famous,
her son's adoption did not have the same privacy right, and the
book was allowed to be published. At the time, none of her children
with Traina knew that Nicholas had been adopted. Steel blamed this
fight, and other revelations published in the biography written by
Lorenzo Benet and Vickie L. Bane, for the breakup of her marriage
to Traina. Following their divorce, Steel used her experience to
write
Malice, about a happy marriage which is destroyed
when the tabloids discover the wife's secret past.
The son at the center of the lawsuits,
Nicholas Traina, committed suicide in 1997
as a result of
bipolar disorder and
drug abuse. Traina was the lead singer of
San Francisco punk bands
Link 80 and
Knowledge. In honor of his memory, Steel
wrote the nonfiction book
His Bright Light, about Nick's
life and death. Proceeds of the book, which reached the New York
Times NonFiction Bestseller List were used to found the Nick Traina
Foundation, which Steel runs, to fund organizations dedicated to
treating mental illness. To gain more recognition for children's
mental illnesses, Steel has lobbied for legislation in Washington,
holds an annual fundraiser (known as The Star Ball) in San
Francisco, and serves on the Advisory Council of the Center for the
Advancement of Children's Mental Health at
Columbia University.
1997 - present
Steel married for a fifth time, to Silicon Valley financier
Tom Perkins, but the marriage lasted
less than two years, ending in 1999. Steel has said that her novel
The Klone and I was inspired by a private joke between
herself and Perkins. In 2006, Perkins dedicated his novel
Sex
and the Single Zillionaire to Steel.
After years of near-constant writing, Steel took a four-month break
in 2003 to open an art gallery in San Francisco. The Steel Gallery
of Contemporary Art exhibited the paintings and sculptures of
emerging artists, especially those whose work Steel collects. The
gallery subsequently closed June 4, 2006.
In 2002, Steel was decorated by the French government as a
"Chevalier" of the
Ordre
des Arts et des Lettres, for her contributions to world
culture.
In 2006 Steel reached an agreement with
Elizabeth Arden to launch a new perfume,
Danielle by Danielle Steel. The new fragrance, made of mandarin,
jasmine, orchid, rose, amber and musk scents, is available only in
selected stores. The target audience for the fragrance is readers
of Steel's novels, and she believes that the new scent reflects her
characters, saying "Fragrances represent so many aspects of life
that my characters experience - commitment, love, and
emotion."
Steel
lives in San Francisco, but also maintains a residence in France
where she spends several months of each year and a beach house in
La Californie near St.
Tropez
. Despite her public image and varied
pursuits, Steel is known to be shy and because of that and her
desire to protect her children from the tabloids, she rarely grants
interviews or public appearances. Her 55-room San Francisco home
was built in 1913 as the mansion of sugar tycoon
Adolph B. Spreckels.
On August 25, 2009,
Governor
Schwarzenegger and
Maria Shriver
announced that Steel would be one of 13
California Hall of Fame inductees in
The California Museum's
yearlong exhibit.
The induction ceremony is on December 1, 2009
in Sacramento
, California.
Writing
A shelf full of Danielle Steel
paperbacks
Steel's novels have been translated into 28 languages and can be
found in 47 countries across the globe. The books, often described
as "formulaic," tend to involve the characters in a crisis of some
sort which threatens their relationship. Many of her characters are
considered over-the-top, making her books seem less realistic. The
novels frequently "[explore] the world of the rich and
famous."
Despite a reputation among critics for writing "fluff," Steel often
delves into the less savory aspects of human nature, including
incest, suicide, divorce, war, and even
the Holocaust. As time has progressed, Steel's
writing has evolved. Her later heroines tend to be stronger and
more authoritative, who, if they do not receive the level of
respect and attention they desire from a man, move on to a new
relationship. In recent years Steel has also been willing to take
more risks with her plots.
Ransom focuses more on suspense
than romance, and follows three sets of seemingly unconnected
characters as their lives begin to intersect.
Toxic
Bachelors departs from her usual style by telling the story
through the eyes of the three title characters, men who discover
their true loves.
Steel has been criticized for making her books overly redundant and
detailed, explicitly telling the story to readers instead of
showing it to them. This sometimes has the effect of making the
readers feel like they are on the outside looking in rather than
living the story.
To avoid comparisons to her previous novels, Steel does not write
sequels. Although many of her earliest books were released with
initial print runs of 1 million copies, by 2004 her publisher had
decreased the number of books initially printed to 650,000 due to
the decline in people buying books. However, her fan base is still
extremely strong with Danielle's books selling out atop charts
worldwide.
Twenty-two of her books have been adapted for television, including
two that have received
Golden Globe
nominations. One is
Jewels, the story of the survival of a
woman and her children in
World War II
Europe, and the family's eventual rebirth as one of the greatest
jewelry houses in Europe. In the late 1990s, Steel refused to sell
the film rights to her novels to companies that intended to market
them for television, preferring to work towards a film contract.
Columbia Pictures was the first
movie studio to offer for one of her novels, purchasing the rights
to
The Ghost in 1998. Steel reversed course in 2005,
reaching an agreement with New Line Home Entertainment to sell the
film rights to 30 of her novels. New Line is expected to adapt the
books as
television movies or for
the direct-to-video market.
Bibliography
Novels
Non-fiction
- Love: Poems (1984)
- Having a Baby (1984)
- His Bright Light (1998)
Picture Books
- The Happiest Hippo in the World (2009)
Children's books
Max & Martha series
- Martha's New Daddy (1989)
- Max and the Babysitter (1989)
- Martha's Best Friend (1989)
- Max's Daddy Goes to the Hospital (1989)
- Max's New Baby (1989)
- Martha's New School (1989)
- Max Runs Away (1990)
- Martha's New Puppy (1990)
- Max and Grandma and Grampa Winky (1991)
- Martha and Hilary and the Stranger (1991)
Freddie series
- Freddie's Trip (1992)
- Freddie's First Night Away (1992)
- Freddie and the Doctor (1992)
- Freddie's Accident (1992)
Filmography
- The Promise (1979)
- Now and Forever (1983)
- Crossings (1986)
- Kaleidoscope (1990)
- Fine Things (1990)
- Changes (1991)
- Palomino (1991)
- Daddy (1991)
- Jewels (1992)
- Secrets (1992)
- Message from Nam (1993)
- Star (1993)
(TV)
- Heartbeat
(1993)
- Family Album
(1994)
- A Perfect Stranger (1994)
- Once in a Lifetime (1994)
- Mixed Blessings
(1995)
- Zoya (1995)
- Vanished (1995)
- The Ring (1996)
- Full Circle (1996)
- Remembrance (1996)
- No Greater
Love (1996)
- Safe Harbour
(2007)
See also
References
External links
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