Steel, Dawn (1946–1997)

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Steel, Dawn (1946–1997)

Film executive who was the first woman to head a major studio, Columbia Pictures. Born on August 19, 1946, in New York; died on December 20, 1997, in Los Angeles, California; only daughter and one of two children of Nat Steel (a zipper salesman and semipro weight lifter) and Lillian Steel (an electronics executive); briefly attended Boston University and New York University; married Ronald Rothstein (a financial investor), on December 31, 1975 (divorced 1977); married Chuck Roven (a producer), on May 30, 1985; children: one daughter, Rebecca Roven.

Frequently referred to as "Steely Dawn" or "The Tank" because of her tough, abrasive style, Dawn Steel was president of Columbia Pictures from 1987 to 1991, and as such was the first woman in history to head a major studio, and the second woman after Sherry Lansing to hold such a powerful position in Hollywood. Steel's rise to power in the male-dominated film industry was something of a celluloid story in itself. A middle-class college dropout with no money or connections, she made her way to the top through sheer will, wit, and determination (plus a spark of creative genius). "Dawn saw life as: if you want something and try really, really hard, you should be able to get it," said her friend Lucy Fisher , vice-chair of Columbia-Tristar Pictures. Steel left Columbia in 1991, opting for a less demanding job as an independent producer. Four years later, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and died 20 months later, age 51.

The granddaughter of Russian Jews (her father changed the family name to Steel from Spielberg), Dawn Steel was born in 1946 and grew up on Long Island, where her father Nat was a zipper salesman and her mother Lillian Steel worked as an electronics executive. When Dawn was nine, Nat suffered a nervous breakdown, a defining moment in Steel's young life. "The man I adored had closed me out. I remember nothing that happened for the next two years. I climbed into a black hole that I didn't come out of for a very long time." Her father's illness also drained the family funds, leaving Steel's mother Lillian scurrying to keep the family solvent. Steel soon learned that if she wanted some of the things her friends had she would have to work for them. At 16, she took an after-school job selling shoes at Pappagallo's, not only earning money but, more important at the time, amassing her own wardrobe of the popular footwear. After high school, without any idea of what she wanted to do, she attended Boston University, majoring in marketing and supporting herself as a go-go dancing waitress. Running out of money, she transferred to New York University's School of Commerce, but lost interest after a year and left to join the workforce full time. After filling in as a receptionist in a clothing firm and serving as a statistician with a small sports book publisher, Steel took a job with Penthouse magazine, quickly working her way up from writer to director of merchandising. Four years later, she left the magazine to go into her own business, a mail-order enterprise from which she first sold phallic amaryllis plants ("Grow your own…. All it takes is $6.98 and a lot of love") and then designer toilet paper emblazoned with the Gucci logo. (Steel's business partner was then her first husband Ronald Rothstein whom she married in 1975 and divorced in 1977, around the time the angry Gucci family sued. The case was eventually settled out of court.)

Steel moved to Los Angeles in 1978, where she landed a job in the merchandising department at Paramount. Shortly after her arrival, she staged a brilliant party for toy manufacturers in conjunction with Star Trek: The Motion Picture, at which she "beamed" the movie characters onto the stage. A year later, having proven herself, she was promoted to vice-president of feature productions. Her first project, Flashdance, made her name in the industry. "She put it together at Paramount at a time when she was literally the only voice that wanted to make it," said James Wiatt, president of International Creative Management (ICM). "It put her on the map as someone who would fight for projects she believed in and someone who had instincts for material and concepts for movies."

As senior vice-president of Paramount from 1983, and president of production from 1985, Steel oversaw such hit movies as Footloose, Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, The Untouchables, and Fatal Attraction. She also met and married producer Chuck Roven, the "perfect" man, after a checkered dating history that included Richard Gere and Martin Scorsese. While her personal life flourished, at work Steel was gaining a reputation for being difficult and demanding, and there were those among the ranks who began plotting to unseat her. In her straightforward book about her career, They Can Kill You … But They Can't Eat You, she attributed many of her escalating problems at work to the ups and downs of her pregnancy with daughter Rebecca, which she found difficult to deal with in the corporate setting. "I was being pressured from above and in my horrendous hormonal state I started pressuring below and became even more demanding of the people who worked for me than I had ever been." In 1987, about the time she was having her child, Steel was let go, learning of her termination from a headline in the trade paper Variety.

Undaunted, Steel quickly rebounded in a better job as head of Columbia Pictures, overseeing both marketing and production at the studio. During her tenure there, she oversaw the marketing campaigns for When Harry Met Sally and Look Who's Talking. She also initiated the release of Carrie Fisher 's Postcards from the Edge and The Awakening, and oversaw the restoration of Lawrence of Arabia. Although Steel mellowed somewhat after the birth of Rebecca, she was still an intimidating force, making it to the cover of California magazine's 1988 "Bosses from Hell" issue.

In 1991, shortly after Sony bought out Columbia, Steel left the studio to become an independent producer. "The higher I went up the ladder in corporate life, the less creative it was, the less fun it was, the less it was about movies and the more about budgets and board meetings and administration," she writes, explaining her departure. "For me it was hell." In her new job, Steel had come full circle. One of the first films she championed was Cool Runnings, the story of a Jamaican bobsled team that, like Flashdance back in 1983, no one thought stood a chance. The film turned out to be the surprise hit of 1993.

Steel approached her illness with her usual grit and bravado. "She worked harder on getting well than anybody I've ever seen," recalled Amy Pascal , who was president of Columbia Pictures in 1998. "At one point, President Clinton called and asked how she was doing, and she said, 'I'm fine, but what are you doing calling me? Don't you have a country to run?'" Following her death on December 20, 1997, Clinton, for whom Steel had hosted a fundraiser in her Hollywood home, praised her as "a pioneer in the film industry, blazing a trail for a new generation of young women." However, producer Lynda Obst , a longtime friend, notes that Steel never set out to be a feminist trailblazer. "She didn't even know the glass ceiling was there," she said. "That's why she was able to break it."