Does anyone know what Danielle Steel is up to since 1994? Is she still married to John Traina?

Question by : Does anyone know what Danielle Steel is up to since 1994? Is she still married to John Traina?
The two biographies available only go up to 1994. What has happened to her since then?

Best answer:

Answer by Chonsie
In 1993 Steel sued a writer who intended to disclose in her book that her son Nick was fathered by William Toth instead of her current husband John Traina, despite the fact that adoption records are sealed in California.[1] A San Francisco judge made a highly unusual ruling in ordering the lawsuit sealed and kept secret after its filing. The order was later overturned by the California Supreme Court, who ruled that because Steel was famous, her son’s adoption did not have the same privacy right, [1] and the book was allowed to be published.[15] At the time, none of her children with Traina knew that Nicholas had been adopted. Steel blamed this fight, and other revelations published in the biography written by Lorenzo Benet and Vickie L. Bane, for the breakup of her marriage to Traina.[1] Following their divorce, Steel used her experience to write Malice, about a happy marriage which is destroyed when the tabloids discover the wife’s secret past.[8]

The son at the center of the lawsuits, Nicholas Traina, committed suicide in 1997 as a result of bipolar disorder and drug abuse.[11] Traina was the lead singer of San Francisco punk bands Link 80 and Knowledge. In honor of his memory, Steel wrote the nonfiction book His Bright Light, about Nick’s life and death. Proceeds of the book, which reached the New York Times NonFiction Bestseller List[14] were used to found the Nick Traina Foundation, which Steel runs, to fund organizations dedicated to treating mental illness.[16] To gain more recognition for children’s mental illnesses, Steel has lobbied for legislation in Washington, holds an annual fundraiser (known as The Star Ball) in San Francisco,[12] and serves on the Advisory Council of the Center for the Advancement of Children’s Mental Health at Columbia University.[17]

[edit] 1997 – present
Steel married for a fifth time, to Silicon Valley financier Tom Perkins, but the marriage lasted less than two years, ending in 1999.[18] Steel has said that her novel The Klone and I was inspired by a private joke between herself and Perkins.[19] In 2006, Perkins dedicated his novel Sex and the Single Zillionaire to Steel.

After years of near-constant writing, Steel took a four-month break in 2003 to open an art gallery in San Francisco. The Steel Gallery of Contemporary Art exhibits the paintings and sculptures of emerging artists, especially those whose work Steel collects. The gallery subsequently closed June 4, 2006.[20]

In 2006 Steel reached an agreement with Elizabeth Arden to launch a new perfume, Danielle by Danielle Steel. The new fragrance, made of mandarin, jasmine, orchid, rose, amber and musk scents, is available only in selected stores. The target audience for the fragrance is readers of Steel’s novels, and she believes that the new scent reflects her characters, saying “Fragrances represent so many aspects of life that my characters experience – commitment, love, and emotion.”[21]

Steel lives in San Francisco,[20] but also maintains a residence in France where she spends several months of each year and a beach house in La Californie near St. Tropez.[1] Despite her public image and varied pursuits, Steel is known to be shy[20] and because of that and her desire to protect her children from the tabloids[1], she rarely grants interviews or public appearances.[22] Her San Francisco home was built in 1913 as the mansion of sugar tycoon Adolph B. Spreckels.[23]

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