Background

Ethnicity: Maria Shriver is of mostly Irish and German descent.

Maria Owings Shriver was born on November 6, 1955 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. She is the daughter of Robert Sargent Shriver, an attorney and former Peace Corps director, and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics.

Education

Maria Shriver attended Westland Middle School and in 1973 graduated from Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart. For two years she attended Manhattanville College and then received a Bachelor of Arts degree in American studies from Georgetown University.

Career

Determined to make a name for herself on her own terms, Shriver started a career as a television journalist in 1977, but she did not become well known until 1985 when she accepted a job as a co-anchor of the CBS Morning News show. Shriver switched to the NBC television network in 1987 and had a very successful tenure there as a news anchor and journalist, but when her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was elected governor of California in 2004, Shriver shelved her television career, citing possible conflicts of interest between her career and her husband's political position. After the inauguration of her husband on November 17, 2003, Maria tried to return to work on the NBC channel, but in February 2004 she decided to quit. Since the beginning of her husband's term as 38th governor of California, she became the First Lady of California.

In subsequent years, Maria Shriver worked in the administration of the governor, actively engaged in social activities. Since 2003, she has hosted an annual conference on women. Under her leadership, the local conference has become the largest forum in the country, to which more than 30 thousand participants come annually. In 2004, the First Lady instituted the Minerva Award, which is presented to California Distinguished Women. In 2008, the WE Invest Program project was launched to help women create and develop their own business. Maria also founded The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement, a nonprofit organization, dedicated to raising awareness about women’s increased risk for Alzheimer’s and to educating people about lifestyle changes they can make to protect their brain health. They raise money to fund women-based Alzheimer’s research at leading scientific institutions in order to understand this disease and get closer to a cure.

Maria Shriver has a number of initiatives related to overcoming the "Vicious Cycle of Poverty" in California. In 2005, WE Connect, a project to help low-income families, was launched and it continues to this day. Also, the first lady of California was engaged in the popularization of volunteering and the dissemination of information about the rules of conduct in emergency situations (for example, during natural disasters).

In April 2013, Shriver returned to NBC as a leading and special correspondent working on issues related to the changing role of women in American life. In the same year, Maria began to work in the team of the famous American television news program Today.

In addition to her broadcasting career, Shriver has won acclaim as the author of several books. Ten Things I Wish I'd Known—Before I Went Out into the Real World was inspired by a commencement speech she gave at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is filled with insights and stories to inspire and encourage young people.

In What's Heaven? Shriver answers a question her own daughters asked when their great-grandmother Rose died. Shriver's daughter Katherine was six years old at the time.

In What's Wrong with Timmy?, which also features the character of Kate, Shriver explored the topic of mental and physical disabilities. Visiting the playground with her mother, Kate sees a boy who looks and acts differently from the other children. He is mentally disabled, and Kate begins questioning her mother about the child.

Shriver continued with the same format and characters in What's Happening to Grandpa?, published in 2004. This book offers information and support to children learning about or coping with Alzheimer's disease. It depicts three generations in a close-knit family.

In 2009, Maria Shriver became the executive producer of a documentary about her father, which was released under the title American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver. In 2009, the four-part documentary television movie The Alzheimer's Project, also produced by Maria Shriver, was released. It focuses on the causes, symptoms, treatment and possible cures of the progressive brain disorder, and takes a close look at the effects the fatal disease has on both the patients and their loved ones. One of the episodes of the Alzheimer's film is based on Shriver's book, Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am?

In 2016, Shriver published Color Your Mind, a coloring book for people with Alzheimer's. Two years later she published I've Been Thinking...: Reflections Prayers and Meditations for a Meaningful Life. Shriver released a companion journal, I've Been Thinking...The Journal: Reflections, Prayers and Inspirations for Your Meaningful Life, in 2019.

Achievements

• Maria Shriver is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist and a seven-time New York Times best-selling author. She started The Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement to raise awareness of women’s increased risk for the disease and to raise funds for critical women-based research. As executive producer of this project, she earned an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences award.
  
  In 2009, Maria was honored with the Shinnyo-en Foundation's 2009 Pathfinders to Peace Award. In 2017, the Alzheimer's Association awarded Shriver with its Lifetime Achievement Award.

Works

More photos

• book

  • What's Wrong with Timmy?

    (Shriver tells the story of Kate, who finds that making fr...)

    2001
  • We Empower: Inspirational Wisdom for Women

    (We Empower is a collection of inspirational quotes from w...)

    2008
  • Just Who Will You Be?

    (Just Who Will You Be reminds us that the answer to many o...)

    2008
  • Ten Things I Wish I'd Known - Before I Went Out into the Real World

    (Maria Shriver reveals the lessons she has learned that ha...)

    2000
  • What's Heaven?

    (What's Heaven? is the story of Kate, a little girl whose ...)

    1999
  • I've Been Thinking... 2018
  • What's Happening to Grandpa? 2004
  • And One More Thing Before You Go... 2005
  • The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Takes on Alzheimer’s 2010

Views

Quotations: "I was always someone else's daughter or niece or wife, but I didn't want to live off someone else's accomplishments. When you're born into such a big thing, you have to focus and push to make your own way in the world."

Personality

Maria Shriver sees the best in other people. She is a woman of quiet strength who role-models kindness and charity.

Physical Characteristics: Maria Shriver is about 166 cm and her weight is 59 kg. Her zodiac sign is Scorpio.

Connections

In the summer of 1977, 21-year-old Maria Shriver was introduced to the Austrian bodybuilder and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. This meeting took place at a charity tennis tournament. The journalist and athlete got married on April 26, 1986 in Hyannis. The marriage produced four children - Katherine Eunice Schwarzenegger, Christina Maria Aurelia Schwarzenegger, Patrick Arnold Shriver Schwarzenegger and Christopher Sargent Shriver Schwarzenegger.

On May 9, 2011, the couple announced their separation by mutual agreement and their intention to continue raising their youngest child together. The divorce was very difficult and lengthy. A few years after the breakup of the couple, whose marriage was considered perfect, Arnie and Maria restored friendly communication.

Now Maria is dating with political pundit Matthew Dowd. They have a serious relationship, but both of them prefer not to advertise their romance.

Father:

Robert Sargent Shriver

Robert Sargent Shriver was an American politician, diplomat and public figure, and in the 1972 presidential election was a candidate for US Vice President of the Democratic Party.

Mother:

Eunice Kennedy Shriver

Eunice Kennedy Shriver was an American activist, the organizer and founder of the first international Special Olympics for people with intellectual disabilities.

child:

Katherine Schwarzenegger

child:

Christina Schwarzenegger

child:

Patrick Schwarzenegger

child:

Christopher Schwarzenegger

ex-spouse:

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Uncle:

John Kennedy

Boyfriend :

Matthew Dowd

Matthew Dowd is an American political pundit and consultant.