Donna Siegel

Donna Siegel is a writer and a photographer. She holds a bachelor's degree in industrial photography and a master's degree in public health. She has three children and three grandchildren and lives in Houston, Texas.

But these externals do not describe who she is. As she writes, "When you grow up in a Jewish immigrant family, nature and nurture are inextricable, a seamless blend." In her case, she adds, it became the spool around which her identity wrapped itself.

And what a family it turned out to be! They were singers, dancers, dress designers, bakers, cooks––and one uncle even played a one-man band. Although Siegel was lavished with piano and tap-dancing lessons, and she knew Shirley Temple's entire repertoire, Hollywood never needed a Jewish replacement.

Lacking the talents of the rest of the family, Siegel says she was forced to become a writer. Perhaps she was born to write this book.