Danielle Steele, born August 14, 1947 is a novelist with a net worth of $610 million. She spent much of her early childhood in France, but upon her parents divorce moved to New York City. She began writing poetry as a teenager, and graduated from Lycee Francais de New York in 1965, then attended Parsons School of Design and later New York University, studying literature design and fashion design. She began writing her first manuscript at nineteen, shortly after her marriage to first husband Claude-Eric Lazard. After the birth of their daughter she became a copywriter for an advertising agency, ad then worked at a public relations agency in San Francisco.

She divorced from Lazard nine years later and shortly before the divorce was finalized, published her first novel Going Home. She married twice more to a convicted rapist Danny Zugelder, and heroin addict William Toth, both marriages ended shortly. Her novel Passion’s Promise and also Remembrance both parallel her failed marriages. She married yet again in 1981, published another novel and a book of poetry in 1984, and in 1989 was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having a book on the New York Times Bestseller List for 381 consecutive weeks. Steele divorced and married again to Tom Perkins, but the marriage ended in 1999. The two have since written novels about each other. In 2003 Steele opened an art gallery in San Francisco, but it closed in June of 2006. She has currently written over 70 novels and works of fiction, picture books, and children’s literature