Steers was born in Washington, D.C. His father, Newton Ivan Steers, Jr. (1917–1993), was a businessman and politician who briefly served as a Republican congressman from Maryland. Through his mother, Nina Gore Auchincloss (born 1937), he is a grandson of stockbroker and lawyer Hugh D. Auchincloss, a cousin of Louis Auchincloss. Nina is also the stepsister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and younger half-sister of the writer Gore Vidal. Steers is a relative of vice president Aaron Burr, the third Vice President of the United States. Steers's great-grandfather Thomas Gore served as Oklahoma's first Democratic senator, from 1907 until 1921 and from 1931 until 1937, while his great-great-grandfather Oliver Burr Jennings was a founder of Standard Oil. Steers's godfather was former Virginia Senator John Warner.
His brother Hugh Auchincloss Steers (1963–1995) was an American figurative painter whose later works often focused on AIDS as a theme. He has another brother, Ivan Steers, and five stepsiblings from his mother's second marriage to editor Michael Whitney Straight.
Steers grew up living in Bethesda, Maryland and Georgetown, Washington, D.C., where he attended St. Albans School. Steers was expelled from both the Hotchkiss School and Culver Military Academy. He eventually earned his GED and attended New York University.

Return to Burr Steers Autograph Profile