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Danielle Steel: The Glamour, the Myth, the Woman
A portrait of Danielle Steele, the world's most popular author--beautiful, talented, and wealthy--profiles her pampered childhood, four marriages, a grueling work schedule, nine children, a glittering social agenda, and a life rivaling her fictional heroines. Original.
- GenresBiographyNonfiction
404 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 16, 2019
یک ریویوی جهان سومی:
اثار دانیل استیل را نخواندم,مطمنم که در سبک مورد علاقه من جایی ندارد,این کتاب اما در ارتباط با زندگی اوست,اخیرا تصمیم گرفتم یک دوره کتاب های سرگذشت و بیوگرافی بخوانم,این کتاب هم صرفا یکی از ان هاست.
زندگی بورژوا مابانه دانیل استیل که بزرگترین تراما کودکیش "خوش گذرانی و پارتی های پدر و مادر پولدارش "بوده چندان من را تحت تاثیر قرار نمی دهد..
نیکل هویت تلاش میکند به ما بقبولاند که "علاقه دانیل به اشیا موزه متروپولیتن" نشان دهنده "آن چیز خاص" اوست..ان چیز خاص او بنظر من تنها ثروت پدر اوست که یک بلیط مترو پولیتن برای او میخرد..
کتاب هایی که نوشته هم ایده هایش از همین جا منشا می گیرد,بد رفتاری و سخت گیری مادربزرگ بزرگترین کاراکتر منفی سازنده ی دنیای اوست:)..خب از انتخابم برای نخواندن اثار وی خوشوقتم..
در مدرسه که استیل تحصیل میکرد تفریحات دانش اموزان شامل رفتن به فرانسه برای تعطیلات می شد:|
استیل از محیطی پرفکت یک نویسنده معمولی بار امد..
خلاصه کتاب:ثروت,طلاق پدر مادر,ثروت,خلا عاطفی کودکی,ثروت,ازدواج های بد,ثروت,9فرزند,ثروت,کتاب های معمولی,ثروت-> دانیل استیل
پ.ن:ازدواج اخرش خوب بوده ظاهرا....
اثار دانیل استیل را نخواندم,مطمنم که در سبک مورد علاقه من جایی ندارد,این کتاب اما در ارتباط با زندگی اوست,اخیرا تصمیم گرفتم یک دوره کتاب های سرگذشت و بیوگرافی بخوانم,این کتاب هم صرفا یکی از ان هاست.
زندگی بورژوا مابانه دانیل استیل که بزرگترین تراما کودکیش "خوش گذرانی و پارتی های پدر و مادر پولدارش "بوده چندان من را تحت تاثیر قرار نمی دهد..
نیکل هویت تلاش میکند به ما بقبولاند که "علاقه دانیل به اشیا موزه متروپولیتن" نشان دهنده "آن چیز خاص" اوست..ان چیز خاص او بنظر من تنها ثروت پدر اوست که یک بلیط مترو پولیتن برای او میخرد..
کتاب هایی که نوشته هم ایده هایش از همین جا منشا می گیرد,بد رفتاری و سخت گیری مادربزرگ بزرگترین کاراکتر منفی سازنده ی دنیای اوست:)..خب از انتخابم برای نخواندن اثار وی خوشوقتم..
در مدرسه که استیل تحصیل میکرد تفریحات دانش اموزان شامل رفتن به فرانسه برای تعطیلات می شد:|
استیل از محیطی پرفکت یک نویسنده معمولی بار امد..
خلاصه کتاب:ثروت,طلاق پدر مادر,ثروت,خلا عاطفی کودکی,ثروت,ازدواج های بد,ثروت,9فرزند,ثروت,کتاب های معمولی,ثروت-> دانیل استیل
پ.ن:ازدواج اخرش خوب بوده ظاهرا....
October 23, 2008
I found this book very boring. Danielle Steel's life sounds a lot like a novel, but this author just dragged on with her account of Danielle's life. The book was very repetitive.
April 17, 2017
I already read Vicki L. Bane's and Lorenzo Benet's The Lives of Danielle Steel. So why am I reading a second biography of Danielle Steel? The answer is simple. To satisfy my obsession with her. Though she had slipped into the backroom of today's literary zeitgeist, she is still moderately big. Her hundreds of novels still make it high on the bestseller list, but they don't last long and she doesn't have a chance anymore of making the top ten best selling books of the year. That's a little said, considering she had 1-3 on that list from 1983-2000. Can anyone beat her record? It's this achievement that made me so fascinated with her, even before I got into writing novels. No, she did not inspire me. In fact, when I found out about her and how successful she is, I got intimidated from every trying a hand at my own stories, because reading about her made me think successful romance novelists all grew up in interesting places and got their careers started in creative fields. Yes, having unique experiences does help to inspire good fiction, but it is not a necessity. My obsession could be written off as monstrous jealousy taking shape in hate-researching, but I think my need to acquire knowledge about her comes from a deeper fascination. I truly think Danielle Steel it the closest society has to seeing someone with superpowers. How amazing would it be, if we could all write a novel within a few days to weeks and have it sell over a million copies each time. It's truly a God-like power. Barbara Cartland said it was God giving her the plots to all her 700 novels which propelled her to be the 3rd bestselling novelists in world history. That is the best gift a deity can give, status, talent, effortlessness. So I want to get to know the working of the almost magical being's mind.
This biography failed in doing that. Disclaimer: I will be reviewing this in comparison to Bane's and Benet's book. How can you fuck up a biography of a woman who lived such an interesting life? The ball was dropped on in so many different ways. The main one was the writing itself. The information was poorly organized. Sections of chapters in the second half of the book should've appeared in the first. Paragraphs were misplaced. Hoyt has a thing with misspelling character's names. Liane from Crossings was spelled Lianne. Isabella from To Love Again was spelled Isabelle. Hilary from Kaleidoscope was spelled Hillary. Did she have a mental autocorrect? The worst part of the writing was how much Hoyt's admiration for Danielle Steel showed through. Page after age was her going googly eyed for the novelist. She clearly thinks Steel is the greatest writer who ever lived. Are most Danielle Steel novels entertaining at minimum? Yes. Perfectly written? That's a laugh even for her fans. The tone that swept most of the book was swooning, and it got in the way of really getting to know Steel. I get that each writer has their own unique view on a subject, but Hoyt's was hard to buy.
Some of her statements were out of wack, because they were drawn from vague places. She goes a lot into the world Danielle grew up in and immersed herself in, from the stuffy 1950's Upper East Side Manhattan to radical 1960's San Francisco. I don't think those societies influenced her as much as Hoyt liked to think, making much of those portions of the book irrelevant and slow. I appreciate the efforts Hoyt put into figuring out why Steel got so popular, but her conclusions on that were implausible. Genre-defying novels? Really? The media treated Steel like a standard romance novelists, a label she detested. My own personal take on that is she rode the 80's psychological zeitgeist that prevailed at the time. Her novels fit snuggly with the having it all / if you believe, you can achieve way of thinking that took storm, at the time. The resilience woven into her plots went hand in hand with the adversity makes you stronger / having the right attitude it the key to everything mentalities. I also think the lipstick feminism that gained momentum at the time contributed to her sales. The women in Danielle Steel novels were strong, but never sacrificed femininity. It was a nicer, cleaner role model than the gritty, protest feminism that came before. Even though many have political backgrounds, Steel novels don't get political unless they're on the right side of history. The only analysis I liked from Hoyt was that Steel's stint in Christian Scientism probably influenced her novels. It's sad that this biography has so much more information on Steel than the other, but they are handled so sloppily such that you don't really connect with Steel's life.
As for the facts about Steel themselves, there's a lot of contradictions with Bane's and Benet's biography. According to Hoyt, Steel dropped out of Parsons due to a life-threatening illness, in which she almost died and got an ovary removed. This near-death experience was also what pushed her to Christian Scientism. I found this hard to believe. She gave birth to seven children including a miscarriage with one ovary? How is that possible? Then Hoyt said it's possible Steel took a lump sum of money from Claude-Eric Lazard, instead of alimony, which is what she lived off of for a long time and used to buy her first house. If that's the case, why did she have to have three jobs? One of those jobs was teaching creative writing at a high school? This jobs isn't mentioned in Hoyt's biography. Bane and Benet said Steel was in massive credit card debt, when she had this job. There was no way she was living stably off a lump sum. Bane's and Benet seemed to have gotten it right. Steel was getting alimony. There's another financial statement the two biographies differ on. Bane and Benet said Steel got an advance of $10,000 for The Promise, and nothing else. Hoyt said Steel got that and another $10,000 for every million copies of the novel sold. I don't know who to believe. Hoyt said Dell Books selected Steel to groom as a star novelist, after the success of The Promise. Bane and Benet said Now and Forever was sold to Dell. Did Hoyt mean to say Dell selected a star author to assist from their own lot? She should've been more clear on that. As for after Steel got famous, Hoyt claimed that she moved into the Jackson Street house, which her fourth husband John Traina owned. Bane and Benet said Steel bought the house herself. The truth could be somewhere in between. She might've let John's name go onto the deed, after they married. One thing Hoyt probably did get right is John introducing his new wife to Mort Janklow.
When it comes to Steel's husbands, to Hoyt's credit, there's a lot more on Danny Zugelder. I liked reading about how they met, even though I spotted another fluke in Hoyt's information. There was no way Steel commuted to Lompoc every weekend. How would she be able to work any of her jobs? That's an all weekend task for only a few hours. Since Zugelder was undergoing a government experiment that occasionally took place in San Francisco, he had to have done some commuting also in a prison bus. There are pictures of Danny Zugelder and Bill Toth back in the day and now. They did not age well. Another credit to Hoyt is, from her efforts, I see why Steel married them. They were the opposite of her first husband, free, working class, down to earth. It was the radical change she needed to feel free without feeling too alone. Just to be clear, Bane's and Benet's biography have way more in Bill Toth and John Traina. The final credit I have to give to Hoyt is her being able to show me why Steel isn't super political. She spent so much time in both circles, she probably liked the idea of being liked by both, influencing her to not have too strong an opinion on today's events. How nice it would be if we could be active in a cause without pissing anyone off. Steel was a darling in snotty conservative circles as much as she was taking up exciting adventures in liberal ones. She's probably tired of navigating those realms nowadays.
All in all, it was just bland. I am extremely disappointed. I think both biographies have something each other needs. Hoyt had the information. Bane and Benet had the writing stills. No matter, my Danielle Steel obsession can take a rest for now.
This biography failed in doing that. Disclaimer: I will be reviewing this in comparison to Bane's and Benet's book. How can you fuck up a biography of a woman who lived such an interesting life? The ball was dropped on in so many different ways. The main one was the writing itself. The information was poorly organized. Sections of chapters in the second half of the book should've appeared in the first. Paragraphs were misplaced. Hoyt has a thing with misspelling character's names. Liane from Crossings was spelled Lianne. Isabella from To Love Again was spelled Isabelle. Hilary from Kaleidoscope was spelled Hillary. Did she have a mental autocorrect? The worst part of the writing was how much Hoyt's admiration for Danielle Steel showed through. Page after age was her going googly eyed for the novelist. She clearly thinks Steel is the greatest writer who ever lived. Are most Danielle Steel novels entertaining at minimum? Yes. Perfectly written? That's a laugh even for her fans. The tone that swept most of the book was swooning, and it got in the way of really getting to know Steel. I get that each writer has their own unique view on a subject, but Hoyt's was hard to buy.
Some of her statements were out of wack, because they were drawn from vague places. She goes a lot into the world Danielle grew up in and immersed herself in, from the stuffy 1950's Upper East Side Manhattan to radical 1960's San Francisco. I don't think those societies influenced her as much as Hoyt liked to think, making much of those portions of the book irrelevant and slow. I appreciate the efforts Hoyt put into figuring out why Steel got so popular, but her conclusions on that were implausible. Genre-defying novels? Really? The media treated Steel like a standard romance novelists, a label she detested. My own personal take on that is she rode the 80's psychological zeitgeist that prevailed at the time. Her novels fit snuggly with the having it all / if you believe, you can achieve way of thinking that took storm, at the time. The resilience woven into her plots went hand in hand with the adversity makes you stronger / having the right attitude it the key to everything mentalities. I also think the lipstick feminism that gained momentum at the time contributed to her sales. The women in Danielle Steel novels were strong, but never sacrificed femininity. It was a nicer, cleaner role model than the gritty, protest feminism that came before. Even though many have political backgrounds, Steel novels don't get political unless they're on the right side of history. The only analysis I liked from Hoyt was that Steel's stint in Christian Scientism probably influenced her novels. It's sad that this biography has so much more information on Steel than the other, but they are handled so sloppily such that you don't really connect with Steel's life.
As for the facts about Steel themselves, there's a lot of contradictions with Bane's and Benet's biography. According to Hoyt, Steel dropped out of Parsons due to a life-threatening illness, in which she almost died and got an ovary removed. This near-death experience was also what pushed her to Christian Scientism. I found this hard to believe. She gave birth to seven children including a miscarriage with one ovary? How is that possible? Then Hoyt said it's possible Steel took a lump sum of money from Claude-Eric Lazard, instead of alimony, which is what she lived off of for a long time and used to buy her first house. If that's the case, why did she have to have three jobs? One of those jobs was teaching creative writing at a high school? This jobs isn't mentioned in Hoyt's biography. Bane and Benet said Steel was in massive credit card debt, when she had this job. There was no way she was living stably off a lump sum. Bane's and Benet seemed to have gotten it right. Steel was getting alimony. There's another financial statement the two biographies differ on. Bane and Benet said Steel got an advance of $10,000 for The Promise, and nothing else. Hoyt said Steel got that and another $10,000 for every million copies of the novel sold. I don't know who to believe. Hoyt said Dell Books selected Steel to groom as a star novelist, after the success of The Promise. Bane and Benet said Now and Forever was sold to Dell. Did Hoyt mean to say Dell selected a star author to assist from their own lot? She should've been more clear on that. As for after Steel got famous, Hoyt claimed that she moved into the Jackson Street house, which her fourth husband John Traina owned. Bane and Benet said Steel bought the house herself. The truth could be somewhere in between. She might've let John's name go onto the deed, after they married. One thing Hoyt probably did get right is John introducing his new wife to Mort Janklow.
When it comes to Steel's husbands, to Hoyt's credit, there's a lot more on Danny Zugelder. I liked reading about how they met, even though I spotted another fluke in Hoyt's information. There was no way Steel commuted to Lompoc every weekend. How would she be able to work any of her jobs? That's an all weekend task for only a few hours. Since Zugelder was undergoing a government experiment that occasionally took place in San Francisco, he had to have done some commuting also in a prison bus. There are pictures of Danny Zugelder and Bill Toth back in the day and now. They did not age well. Another credit to Hoyt is, from her efforts, I see why Steel married them. They were the opposite of her first husband, free, working class, down to earth. It was the radical change she needed to feel free without feeling too alone. Just to be clear, Bane's and Benet's biography have way more in Bill Toth and John Traina. The final credit I have to give to Hoyt is her being able to show me why Steel isn't super political. She spent so much time in both circles, she probably liked the idea of being liked by both, influencing her to not have too strong an opinion on today's events. How nice it would be if we could be active in a cause without pissing anyone off. Steel was a darling in snotty conservative circles as much as she was taking up exciting adventures in liberal ones. She's probably tired of navigating those realms nowadays.
All in all, it was just bland. I am extremely disappointed. I think both biographies have something each other needs. Hoyt had the information. Bane and Benet had the writing stills. No matter, my Danielle Steel obsession can take a rest for now.
August 28, 2018
Surely there's a better book about Danielle Steele. This one was just about nothing. I thought this book was just boring and didn't explain anything about her life. Boring.
May 8, 2017
Okay --- crazy read mostly because her life was so interesting. The writing was hard to get through and there are numerous errors, but overall, really enjoyable.
March 26, 2023
An interesting glimpse into the life of best selling novelist Danielle Steel. I liked hearing about her life and how seemingly some aspects of her life parallel similar storylines in her books. You will definitely get a feel for her past published novels as most have a blurb in each chapter. It was fun to hear about the long ago read books whose plots I have long forgotten. Her life may seem glamorous but she has certainly had ups and downs along the way. Also noted how some of her books got turned into movies. I’ve been reading her books for 40 plus years. Although this particular book was published in 1994 some of it has no relevance to the time. However there is some dated history and that was a fun reminiscence. Overall it was an informative delve into a somewhat obscured life.
January 23, 2024
I wanted insight into Danielle Steele since I’ve read many of her books, but I didn’t like this author’s style which was choppy and dwelt more on the negative than the positive. And, left me with more questions.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews