Steve Jobs' Estranged Father Never Got Phone Call He Waited For
By COLLEEN CURRY | ABC News
Steve Jobs' estranged father, who had given up his infant son for adoption, had been hoping that his grown son would call him. That hope died today.
Abdulfattah John Jandali had emailed his son a few times in a tentative effort to make contact. The father never called the son because he feared Jobs would think the dad who had given him up was now after his fortune. And Jobs never responded to his father's emails.
"I really don't have anything to say," Jandali, vice president at Boomtown Hotel Casino in Reno, Nev., told the International Business Times.
Jandali, a Syrian immigrant, had been quoted by the New York Post recently saying he didn't know until just a few years ago that the baby he and his ex-wife, Joanne Simpson, gave up grew to be Apple's CEO.
Jandali told the Post that had it been his choice, he would have kept the baby. But Simpson's father did not approve of her marrying a Syrian, so she moved to San Francisco to have the baby alone and give him up for adoption.
Steve Jobs Secretive Private Life
Jandali, who is 80, said at the time that he would have been happy to just have a cup of coffee with the son he never knew before it was too late. Stories of Jobs' battle with a form of pancreatic cancer and his liver transplant were public and Jobs' health had deteriorated to the point where he was forced to resign as CEO of Apple.
He was quoted as saying, "This might sound strange, though, but I am not prepared, even if either of us was on our deathbeds, to pick up the phone to call him."
Though he was one of the world's most famous CEOs, Steve Jobs has remained stubbornly private about his personal life, ignoring the media and the public's thirst for knowledge about him ever since he co-founded Apple Computer in 1976.
He was so successful at keeping the details of his life out of the celebrity pages that a Pew poll in June 2010 found that only 41 percent of Americans correctly identified Jobs as head of Apple. A CBS poll that year concluded that 69 percent of Americans didn't know enough about Jobs to have an opinion about him.
Jobs personal life was a story of extremes. Given up for adoption, he created a worldwide giant of a company in his garage, dated movie stars, and had a child out of wedlock who he denied for many years.
Many fans know that Jobs and his wife, Laurene Powell, have been married for more than 20 years; the two were married in a small ceremony in Yosemite National Park in 1991, live in Woodside, Calif., and have three children: Reed Paul, Erin Sienna, and Eve.
Less well-known are the other members of his family. He has a daughter, Lisa Brennan Jobs, born in 1978 with his high school girlfriend, Chris Ann Brennan.
His sister is Mona Simpson, the acclaimed writer of books like "Anywhere But Here." Jobs did not meet Simpson until they were adults, when he was seeking information on his birth parents. Simpson later wrote a book based on their relationship. In the book, "A Regular Guy," Simpson shed light on Jobs's relationship with Brennan and his daughter, Lisa.
Fortune magazine reported that Jobs denied paternity of Lisa for years, at one point swearing in a court document that he was infertile and could not have children. According to the report, Chris Ann Brennan collected welfare for a time to support the child, until Jobs later acknowledged Lisa as his daughter.
The college dropout was a millionaire by the age of 25 and on the cover of Time by 26. By 30, he was starting a second company, NeXT.
During those years, though, Jobs also lived an exciting personal life. He also began a relationship with singer Joan Baez, according to Elizabeth Holmes, a friend and classmate. In "The Second Coming of Steve Jobs," Holmes tells biographer Alan Deutschman that Jobs broke up with his serious girlfriend to "begin an affair with the charismatic singer-activist." Holmes confirmed these details to ABC News.
Deutschman's book also says Jobs went on a blind date with Diane Keaton; went out with Lisa Birnbach, author of "The Preppy Handbook;" and hand delivered computers to celebrities he admired.
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