Steel was born Danielle Fernandes Dominique -Steel in New York City to a German father and a Portuguese mother. Her father, John -Steel, was a immigrant and a descendant of owners of beer. Her mother, Norma da Camara Stone dos Reis, was the daughter of a Portuguese diplomat. She spent much of her childhood in where from an early age she was included in her parents' dinner parties, giving her an opportunity to observe the habits and lives of the wealthy and famous.[9] Her parents divorced when she was eight, and she was raised primarily by her father, rarely seeing her mother