Carl Djerassi - Personal Life

Personal Life

In 1977 he began a relationship with noted biographer and university professor Diane Middlebrook, and in 1985 they were married. By 2002 she had decided to retire, to work full-time on her research, and she convinced Djerassi to also retire that year. He became an emeritus professor. They divided their time between homes in San Francisco and London, until her death on 15 December 2007.

On July 5, 1978, Djerassi's artist daughter Pamela (from his second marriage, to Norma Lundholm), committed suicide. With Middlebrook's help, Djerassi then considered how he could help living artists, rather than collecting works of dead ones. He donated half of his Klee collection to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and half to the Albertina in Vienna, effective on his death. He visited existing artist colonies, such as Yaddo and MacDowell, and decided to create his own. He closed his cattle ranch, converted the barn and houses to residential and work space for artists, brought in a prize-winning chef, and moved his home to an office building in San Francisco that he had renovated, converting one floor into a posh apartment, where he displayed part of his art collection and hosted a literary salon, initially referred to as SMIP (Syntex Made it Possible).