THE DAZZLING DANIELLE STEEL: Know your Author

 

Steel was born Danielle Fernandes Dominique Schuelein-Steel in New York City, the only child of Norma da Câmara Stone dos Reis and John Schulein-Steel....

 Her father was a German Jewish immigrant, a descendant of owners of Löwenbräu beer. Her mother, born in Portugal, was the daughter of a diplomat Steel was raised Catholic and had wanted to be a nun during her early years.She spent much of her 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 eight, however, and she was raised primarily in New York City and Europe by her father, rarely seeing her mother.

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 1963, she studied literature design and fashion design, first at Parsons School of Design in 1963 and then at New York University from 1963 to 1967.In 1965. 
When she was 18, Steel married French-American 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 nine years of marriage and many years of separation, Steel and Lazard divorced. In 1972 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 human relationships.
While still married to Lazard, Steel met Danny Zugelder while interviewing an inmate in a prison near Lompoc, California, where Zugelder was also incarcerated. He moved in with Steel when he was paroled in June 1973, but returned to prison in early 1974 on robbery and rape charges. After receiving her divorce from Lazard in 1975, she married Zugelder in the prison canteen. She divorced him in 1978.

 
Steel’s books are particularly enjoyed by women all over the world owing to the romantic settings of her novels. Her novels have also proven to be very popular for movie adaptations. In fact, 21 of her novels have been adapted for TV, with the most successful being 'Jewels' in 1992 as this won two Golden Globe nominations.

Away from her writing, she once owned an art gallery dedicated to emerging contemporary artists and now guest curates for an art gallery in San Francisco. As well as the Nichols Traina Foundation, she has established a charity to assist the homeless and has won numerous awards for her work with ill and abused children. She is considered today,the world's bestselling Author.