Merla Zellerbach [SEP] place of birth
Merla Zellerbach
Merla Zellerbach, née Myrle Carmel Burstein, was born in San Francisco in 1930, the daughter of Rabbi Elliot M. and Lottie Burstein. While attending Stanford University, she met and soon thereafter married Stephen Zellerbach. They had one child, son Gary. Her literary, civic and philanthropic work began at the time of her first marriage. By the time of her death on December 26, 2014, she authored 13 well reviewed novels and five self-help medical books, was a panelist for six years on
helped out at her husband's temple and found a creative outlet by performing dramatic readings of plays. Merla's sister, Devera Kettner, was an actress (under the screen name Devera Burton), and her brother Sandor Burstein was a doctor. Merla Zellerbach took the last name of her first husband, Stephen Zellerbach (whose great-grandfather started the Zellerbach Paper Company in 1870, later known as Crown-Zellerbach Corporation) and kept the name the rest of her life, since she was known by it professionally.