Danielle Steel (born Danielle Fernandes Schuelein-Steel on August 14, 1947 in New York City, New York) is one of the best-selling authors in the history of the United States.
Best known for her romance novels, Steel has sold more than 530 million copies of her books (as of 2005). One or more of her novels have been on the New York Times bestseller list for over 390 consecutive weeks and twenty-one have been adapted for television.
In addition to her novels for adults, Steel has written the "Max and Martha" series of books for young readers. She has also written four "Freddie" books about real-life situations in children's lives, like a visit to the doctor and the first night away from home. Steel has published a book of poetry and has also written two non-fiction books: Having a Baby and His Bright Light (the latter focusing on the life and death of her son Nicholas Traina).
As a result of her own dysfunctional family, Steel maintains a strong interest in the well-being of children and has raised nine of her own. She has been married five times and is currently single. Her husbands to date are Claude-Eric Lazard, Danny Zugelder, William Toth, John Traina, and Tom Perkins.
She was first married at age eighteen and had one daughter. This was followed by a brief second marriage to a convicted rapist, and she soon found herself pregnant out of wedlock with her second child by the heroin-addicted William Toth. She married him shortly before giving birth to their son, whom she named Nicholas, but they divorced soon after.
She married for the fourth time to John Traina, who already had two sons of his own. Traina subsequently adopted Nick and gave him his family name. With John Traina, Steel gave birth to four daughters and a son, but that marriage also ended in divorce. Her fifth marriage, to the Silicon Valley financier Tom Perkins, lasted less than two years, ending in 1999. In 2006, Perkins dedicated his novel "Sex and the Single Zillionaire" to Steel.
In 2002 the French government decorated Danielle Steel as a "Chevalier" of the distinguished Order of Arts and Letters for her lifetime contribution to world culture.
Danielle Steel has a home in Pacific Heights, San Francisco, California and in 2003 opened an art gallery in the city to exhibit the paintings and sculptures of emerging artists. She also maintains a residence in France where she spends several months of each year. She is of German, Jewish, and Portuguese heritage.
Steel's sister Marisa is married to Dr. Carl Hahn, the legendary chairman of Volkswagen from 1982 to 1993 who had made Volkswagen a household word in the United States as president of Volkswagen of America in the early 1960s. Though Hahn's literary tastes are rather highbrow, he has always made it clear that he reads his sister-in-law's work as well.
1947 births | Living people | American children's writers | American novelists | Christian Science followers | Jewish American writers | People from New York | Portuguese-Americans | San Franciscans
Даниел Стийл | Danielle Steel | Danielle Steel | Danielle Steel | Danielle Steel
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