The Lives of Danielle Steel: The Unauthorized Biography of America's #1 Best-Selling Author [Mass Market Paperback]

Vickie L. Bane (Author), Lorenzo Benet (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 1995

Dressed to the nines and draped with diamonds, Danielle Steel is America's favorite author. She has enchanted readers with each of her 44 bestselling novels-- and has a total of 350 million books in print! Now, this stunning, uncensored biography reveals how closely Danielle's fiction is based on real life-- the rich men, the dangerous men, the heartbreak, the struggles, the triumphs...and the secrets too dark to tell.

Read all about:

* Her cruel, lonely childhood which became the inspiration for her novel Loving
* Her long-hidden marriage to a convicted rapist, the scandalous real story readers will recognize in her novel Now and Forever
* Her third husband, a handsome heroin addict, who, like the protagonist of Remembrance, broke her heart and nearly ruined her life
* Her lavish spending and opulent lifestyle in a San Francisco mansion
* The tragic death of her nineteen-year-old son in 1997
* The break-up of her fourth marriage-- and the new man in Danielle Steel's life

With eight pages of photos!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Steel's life would make as compelling a TV mini-series as any of her novels have."--Publishers Weekly

"Fans of Danielle Steel's romantic concoctions will relish this unauthorized biography...Bane and Benet...have done an admirable job."--People

"Steamy."--Entertainment Weekly

From the Publisher

"Steamy." --Entertainment Weekly

"Dramatic and compelling." --Romantic Times

"Steel's life would make as compelling a TV mini-series as any of her novels have." --Publishers Weekly

"Fans of Danielle Steel's romantic concoctions will relish this unauthorized biography...Bane and Benet...have done an admirable job." --People

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks (August 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312955758
• ISBN-13: 978-0312955755
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #933,766 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Others Missing the Point, December 10, 2001

By 

"phantastical" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lives of Danielle Steel: The Unauthorized Biography of America's #1 Best-Selling Author (Mass Market Paperback)

All of these negative reviewers are missing the point. This book was written to show the interesting parallels between Danielle Steels life and the characters in her book. The book doesn't go out of its way to say that Danielle is a bad person - it's just saying, "look, her books are a lot like her life." You people should just relax and enjoy the parallels between life and fiction. This is a great book, and I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I'm also a Danielle Steel fan - I've read all of her books - and I now look back at them with a different eye, which is fun!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fans, please chill out!, January 23, 2004

By 

Carol H. "Proustian mess" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lives of Danielle Steel: The Unauthorized Biography of America's #1 Best-Selling Author (Mass Market Paperback)

I have to say it: I am not a Danielle Steel fan in the strict sense of the word. I find her prose repetitive, her dénouements fairly sugarcoated and her writing rather low-brow in general, especially for a writer who scoffs at the romance writer definition and would like to be compared with Judith Krantz or Sidney Sheldon. And yet, there is something about her books that keeps me coming back for more. I especially enjoy her period works, like "Vanished," "Zoya," or "Crossings" and I have to say she has a knack at making a good portrayal of the times in which her books are set. The plots are intricate enough and one can almost invariably bond and relate to her characters without difficulty. As to this unauthorized biography, "The Lives of Danielle Steel," it has helped me understand more about the persona who is behind the fiction. The research on the author's life is very thorough and it also makes some good points about her fiction. This book doesn't intend to tarnish Danielle Steel's image, all the opposite: it helps her fans discover her as a human being. It's true that it gouges up a lot of rubbish about her past but in the end it was she who took the decision to marry ex-cons and drug-addicts. We all make mistakes and have to live them down as best we can. I found the book as entertaining as any of Steel's books and, as I have already said, it helped me relate better to Danielle Steel now that I know that she's human.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very good read, December 3, 2005

By 

Dottie Randazzo "Reader of Everything" (Delaware, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lives of Danielle Steel: The Unauthorized Biography of America's #1 Best-Selling Author (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a great book. Danielle Steel is not just some rich arthur in her mansion in San Francisco. She is a compasionate person who actually feels and gets involved with the less fortunate. I didn't feel that this book was slanted either way. I think it is a fair portrait of one's life. Definitely an intestersting read.