Personal Life
Born Helen Diane Wood, in Pocatello, Idaho, Middlebrook spent the last 28 years of her life with her third husband, Carl Djerassi, a Viennese-born American scientist who helped invent the first contraceptive pill. Her first two marriages, to Michael Shough and Jonathan Middlebrook, were annulled. Middlebrook's experience with her two divorces was something that, in her own words, "rips your soul out of your body".
The second marriage gave her the name under which she established her literary reputation (Middlebrook). From that matrimony one child was born. Leah Middlebrook followed her illustrious mother's example, and taught Comparative Literature and Romance Languages.
In 1977 Middlebrook began a relationship with noted scientist Carl Djerassi. They were married in 1985, and remained married until her death.
Middlebrook retired in 2002, and persuaded Djerassi to retire from chemistry that year. (He continued to write fiction and drama.) She then concentrated more fully on her research, and she and Djerassi divided their time between their residences in San Francisco and London.
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