Personal Life
Greenburg's first wife was writer and film director Nora Ephron. After seven years, their marriage ended in an amicable divorce. His second wife was writer Suzanne O'Malley, with whom he had a son, Zack O'Malley Greenburg, and for whom Dan's best-selling series of children's books, The Zack Files, was named. At age five, Zack played the title role of Lorenzo in the film Lorenzo's Oil. Zack is now a staff writer at Forbes Magazine and the author of a biography of Jay-Z. Dan is currently married to Judith C. Wilson, who as J.C. Greenburg writes children's books, including the 18-volume series Andrew Lost. They live in Westchester, NY with many cats.
Greenburg claims he had over-protective parents and grew up scared of everything. "So I've spent much of my adult life undertaking risky adventures and writing about them," he says, "trying to convince myself I wasn't a coward. Now my adventures are more about adrenaline than fear." Writing of Greenburg's escapades, George Plimpton once said: "I wouldn't dare to try many of Greenburg's adventures...but I have always envied him his forays into other people's worlds and his wonderful and comic skill at describing them."
Greenburg says his adventures had to fulfill two criteria: "(1) They had to take place in worlds that were exotic to me, with unfamiliar rules and vocabularies, and (2) they had to frighten me physically, emotionally, or both." He has given examples including: accompanying New York homicide cops as they capture a killer, flying upside-down over the Pacific with a stunt pilot in an open-cockpit plane, and learning to discipline tigers and lions in Texas.
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