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Dawn Steel (August 19, 1946 – December 20, 1997) was one of the first women to run a major Hollywood film studio. She was born as Dawn Spielberg (no relation to Steven Spielberg) in New York City and raised in the suburb Great Neck, Long Island. Her father changed the family name. Dawn Steel attended New York University but did not graduate. She became merchandising director for Penthouse Magazine. In 1975, she founded her own company that produced novelty items such as designer logo toilet paper. In 1978, she went to work for Paramount Pictures, where she planned marketing tie-ins for... MORE

Dawn Steel (August 19, 1946 – December 20, 1997) was one of the first women to run a major Hollywood film studio. She was born as Dawn Spielberg (no relation to Steven Spielberg) in New York City and raised in the suburb Great Neck, Long Island. Her father changed the family name. Dawn Steel attended New York University but did not graduate. She became merchandising director for Penthouse Magazine. In 1975, she founded her own company that produced novelty items such as designer logo toilet paper. In 1978, she went to work for Paramount Pictures, where she planned marketing tie-ins for Star Trek: The Motion Picture and was responsible for the making of Fatal Attraction and Flashdance, amongst others. She became vice president of production in 1980 and production chief in 1985. Steel was the second woman to head a major film production department (the first being Sherry Lansing at Twentieth-Century Fox and the third being Nina Jacobson at Buena Vista). Her production credits from that era include Flashdance, Top Gun, and Fatal Attraction. In 1985, she married film producer Charles Roven with whom she had a daughter Rebecca Steel Roven. She became president of Columbia Pictures in LESS