Maria Shriver

Maria Owings Shriver (born November 6, 1955)

is an American journalist, author, a member of the Kennedy family, former First Lady of California, and the founder of the nonprofit organization The Women's Alzheimer's Movement.

Shriver was born in Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, on November 6, 1955, the second child of politician Sargent Shriver and activist Eunice Kennedy.

She is a niece of the late U.S. president John F. Kennedy, U.S. attorney general and U.S. senator Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. senator Ted Kennedy, and six other siblings.

A Roman Catholic, she is of mostly Irish and German descent.

Shriver spent her middle school years living in Paris save for a brief period where Shriver's family temporarily moved to Chicago in the summer of 1968 following Eunice Kennedy Shriver's work with the Special Olympics.

She is a member of the International Board of Special Olympics, the organization her mother founded in 1968.

She is also on the advisory board of Best Buddies, a one-to-one friendship and jobs program for people with intellectual disabilities.

In addition, Shriver serves as Chair of the Audi Best Buddies Challenge: Hearst Castle, a bike ride that raises millions of dollars for programs supporting people with intellectual disabilities.

As First Lady, Shriver has been instrumental in the hiring of individuals with intellectual disabilities in the capitol and in various state offices through her WE Include program.

Shriver permanently returned from France to Bethesda, Maryland, in 1970, where she attended Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart high school and graduated in 1973, later attending Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York, for two years, then transferring into a Bachelor of Arts degree in American studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., graduating in June 1977.

Shriver is a fourth cousin of tennis player Pam Shriver.

Shriver is also a cousin of Caroline Kennedy.

After her journalism career began with KYW-TV in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she co-anchored The CBS Morning News with Forrest Sawyer from August 1985 until August 1986, co-anchored NBC News's Sunday Today from 1987 until 1990.

Shriver began her journalism career at CBS station KYW-TV and briefly anchored the CBS Morning News before joining NBC News in 1986.

After anchoring weekend editions of the Today show and the NBC Nightly News, she became a correspondent for Dateline NBC, also covering politics.

Shriver also served as Saturday anchor 1989 & Sunday 1990 of NBC Nightly News.

She was a contributing anchor on Dateline NBC from 1992 until 2004.

She appeared as herself in the film Last Action Hero (1993).

For her reporting at NBC, Shriver received a Peabody Award in 1998 and was co-anchor for NBC's Emmy-winning coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics.

As executive producer of The Alzheimer's Project, Shriver earned two Emmy Awards and an Academy of Television Arts & Sciences award for developing a "television show with a conscience."

In her book Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out Into The Real World (2000), Shriver says that she became passionate about broadcast journalism after being sent to the back of the campaign plane with the press corps while volunteering for her father's 1972 U.S. vice presidential race, calling these orders "the best thing that ever happened to me".

In August 2003, Shriver took an unpaid leave of absence from NBC News when her husband became a candidate in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election.

Following her husband's November 17, 2003, inauguration as the 38th Governor of California, she became the First Lady of California.

She then returned to reporting, making two more appearances for Dateline NBC.

In 2003, Shriver's father Sargent Shriver was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and she became an advocate and fundraiser for Alzheimer's patient care and biomedical research.

After leaving NBC News in 2004 to focus on her role as First Lady of California, she returned in 2013 as a special anchor.

On February 3, 2004, Shriver asked to be "relieved of [her] duties at NBC News," citing concerns the network had over the conflict of interest between her role as a journalist and her status as the First Lady of California and her increasing role as an advocate of her husband's administration.

She also played a minor role as herself in "Be Prepared", a 2006 episode of the television series That's So Raven promoting a "Preparedness Plan".

On March 23, 2007, Shriver returned to television news as substitute host of panel-discussion talk show Larry King Live on CNN with musician Sheryl Crow and other guests.

Shriver announced that she would not return to the news media after the excessive media coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

Shriver subsequently returned to the news media.

Shriver was the executive producer of The Alzheimer's Project, a four-part documentary series that premiered on HBO in May 2009 and later earned two Emmy Awards.

It was described by the Los Angeles Times as "ambitious, disturbing, emotionally fraught and carefully optimistic".

The series took a close look at cutting-edge research being done in the country's leading Alzheimer's laboratories.

The documentary also examined the effects of this disease on patients and families.

One of the Emmy Award-winning films, Grandpa, Do you Know Who I Am? is based on Shriver's best-selling children's book dealing with Alzheimer's.

She was married to former governor of California and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, from whom she filed for divorce in 2011 and which was finalized in 2021.

In 2016, Shriver published the coloring book Color Your Mind, a coloring book for people with Alzheimer's.

Shriver has been a lifelong advocate for people with intellectual disabilities.