When Dawn Steel (1946-1997) was promoted to president of Columbia Pictures, she became the first woman ever to run a major U.S. motion picture studio.

In the foreward to her autobiography, They Can Kill You, but They Can't Eat You, Dawn Steel wrote, "My story is far from a Hollywood fantasy. It might sound like one, though, if you don't look deeper: a girl from a struggling, lower-middle-class family grows up, gets through high school, drops out of college when she runs out of money ... and winds up running a major motion picture studio." Steel would be the first woman to be in charge of such a studio; however, due to cancer, the story of her life did not have the classic happy Hollywood ending.

Early Life

Steel was born August 19, 1946, in the Bronx, New York. Before her birth, her father had changed the Jewish family name...