 Wealthy New Yorkers, the Milius' ancestors immigrated to the United States from Bavaria in the 19th-century and made fortunes in Manhattan real estate and textiles.Raised in a German-Jewish family in New York, her parents were conscious of their social status, looking down upon those below them in the social ladder, even as they were set off for their Jewish heritage.Her mother was more liberal than her father and was the younger sister of the noted theatre designer and critic Lee Simonson.