Maria Shriver

• 1. Introduction

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  Maria Shriver was volunteering on her father's 1972 vice presidential campaign when she was sent to the back of the campaign plane, where the reporters sat. In her 2000 book, Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out Into The Real World, she called that assignment "the best thing that ever happened to me". Among the press corps she found a calling in broadcast journalism. What follows is the story of how that calling met one of America's best known political families. How does someone born into that family make a name of her own at a network anchor desk? And what happens when a reporter becomes part of the story she once covered?

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• 2. Family Inheritance

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  On the 6th of November 1955, Maria Owings Shriver was born in Chicago, Illinois. She was the second child and only daughter of the politician Sargent Shriver and the activist Eunice Kennedy. Through her mother she was a niece of President John F. Kennedy, Attorney General and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Senator Ted Kennedy. The family was Roman Catholic, and her ancestry was mostly Irish and German.

  Paris was home for her middle school years. The one interruption came in the summer of 1968, when the family moved temporarily to Chicago because of her mother's work with the Special Olympics.

  In 1970 the family settled permanently in Bethesda, Maryland, after leaving France. She graduated from Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart in 1973. Two years at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York, came next. She then transferred to Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and earned a Bachelor of Arts in American studies in June 1977.

  The family tree reaches into sport as well. The tennis player Pam Shriver is her fourth cousin.

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• 3. The Anchor Desk

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  Philadelphia's KYW-TV gave Shriver her first newsroom job. By August 1985 she had moved to the CBS Morning News, which she co-anchored with Forrest Sawyer until August 1986. That year she joined NBC News, and the network became her professional home for nearly two decades.

  At NBC she co-anchored Sunday Today from 1987 until 1990. She also served as Saturday anchor of NBC Nightly News in 1989 and Sunday anchor in 1990. From 1996 to 1999 she was a contributing anchor on that broadcast. On Dateline NBC she held the same contributing role from 1992 until 2004.

  The honors came steadily. She co-anchored NBC's Emmy-winning coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics. In 1998 her reporting earned a Peabody Award.

  Hollywood and sitcoms noticed her too. She appeared as herself in the 1993 film Last Action Hero. In 2006 she played herself again in a That's So Raven episode called "Be Prepared", which promoted a preparedness plan.

  In August 2003 her husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, became a candidate in the California gubernatorial recall election. Shriver took an unpaid leave of absence from NBC News. His inauguration on the 17th of November 2003, as the 38th Governor of California, made her First Lady of the state. She made two more appearances on Dateline NBC after that.

  On the 3rd of February 2004 she asked to be "relieved of her duties at NBC News". The network had raised concerns about a conflict between her journalism and her growing role as an advocate for her husband's administration.

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• 4. A Women's Platform

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  More than 30,000 people filled the Long Beach Convention Center in 2010 for the California Governor and First Lady's Conference on Women. They were joined by 150 world opinion leaders across three days. Shriver had begun leading the event when her husband took office in 2003. Under her it grew into what the source calls the nation's premier forum for women, held each October.

  The speakers were a remarkable mix. They included Oprah Winfrey, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and Madeleine Albright, and Barbara Walters. Warren Buffett, Tony Blair, Richard Branson, Bono, Gloria Steinem and the Dalai Lama also took the stage.

  In 2004 Shriver created the Minerva Awards for "remarkable California women". The name comes from the Roman goddess who adorns the California State Seal. The award's own description says she "symbolizes the dual nature of women as warriors and peacemakers". Winners receive a grant to continue their work. Betty Ford, Nancy Pelosi, Billie Jean King and the astronaut Sally Ride are among them. So is Shriver's late mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver. A permanent exhibit at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts in Sacramento records their achievements.

  In October 2009 Shriver launched The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything. Partners included the Center for American Progress, the Annenberg Center on Communication, Leadership and Policy at USC, and the Rockefeller Foundation. Its headline finding was that American women, for the first time, made up half of the nation's workforce. The report examined what that meant for family, business, government and faith organizations. In 2013 it was released in partnership with TIME and NBC News. The New York Times said it was modeled on a study from almost 50 years earlier, under John F. Kennedy and led by Eleanor Roosevelt.

  A 2014 edition, A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, turned to women and children in poverty. Olivia Morgan and Karen Skelton edited it with Shriver. Its contributors ranged from Hillary Clinton to the basketball star LeBron James.

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• 5. Programs Called WE

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  In 2005 Shriver launched WE Connect, a program that links struggling working families to money-saving programs and support services. A partnership with La Opinión, the nation's largest Spanish-language newspaper, produced three editions of a 24-page bilingual supplement. Its circulation passed 20 million.

  In December 2009 The Women's Conference donated enough to the California Association of Food Banks to provide more than one million meals. The money went to 44 member organizations, which passed food along through more than 5,000 community-based groups. Three months later, in March 2010, a Community Resources Fair ran in Fresno and Los Angeles. Organizers estimated that more than 40,000 people used free services such as tax preparation, foreclosure help, flu shots and job assistance.

  Volunteering was another priority. As Honorary Chair of CaliforniaVolunteers, Shriver conceived the statewide volunteer matching network at CaliforniaVolunteers.org. She helped inspire Governor Schwarzenegger to create the first state cabinet-level Department of Service and Volunteering. Her WE Prepare program taught Californians to get ready for emergencies and natural disasters. WE Build and WE Garden added playgrounds and community gardens in lower-income neighborhoods. With KaBOOM!, she built 31 playgrounds with gardens.

  In May 2009, working with Alice Waters, Shriver planted the first edible garden at a state capitol, where a flower bed had been. Its harvest goes to local food banks. As chair of the California School Garden Network, she saw school gardens double from 3,000 to 6,000 since 2004.

  WE Invest began in 2008, offering women training, mentoring, microloans and support networks for starting or growing businesses. In June 2009 she took it national with Kiva, creating the first online peer-to-peer microlending program in the United States. She is credited with the idea of bringing Kiva's international model home.

  Shriver also co-chairs The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts, and has been credited with reviving it. In 2006 she created the California Hall of Fame there. Cesar Chavez, Walt Disney, Amelia Earhart and Dorothea Lange are among those honored. In November 2008 she launched California Legacy Trails, a web-based multimedia tool that helps students learn the state's history.

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• 6. Causes Close to Home

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  In 2003 Sargent Shriver was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. His daughter became an advocate and fundraiser for patient care and biomedical research, and later founded The Women's Alzheimer's Movement.

  Her biggest screen project on the subject arrived in May 2009. The Alzheimer's Project, a four-part series on HBO, went inside the country's leading Alzheimer's laboratories and followed patients and their families. The Los Angeles Times called it "ambitious, disturbing, emotionally fraught and carefully optimistic". It earned two Emmy Awards. One winning film, Grandpa, Do you Know Who I Am?, is based on her best-selling children's book. As executive producer she also received an Academy of Television Arts and Sciences award for developing a "television show with a conscience".

  In 2010 she worked with the Alzheimer's Association on The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Takes on Alzheimer's. Barbra Streisand, Laura Bush, Rosalynn Carter and Joe Biden contributed. She was an executive producer of the 2014 film Still Alice. In 2016 she published Color Your Mind, a coloring book for people with Alzheimer's. The Alzheimer's Association gave her its first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.

  Intellectual disability is a second lifelong cause. Her mother founded the Special Olympics in 1968, and Shriver sits on its International Board. She is on the advisory board of Best Buddies, which offers friendship and jobs programs. She chairs the Audi Best Buddies Challenge: Hearst Castle, a bike ride that raises millions of dollars. Her WE Include program helped bring people with intellectual disabilities into jobs in the state capitol and other offices.

  In February 2008 she and her brother Tim Shriver started an ice cream company, Lovin' Scoopful. A quarter of its proceeds support the Special Olympics.

  Her father's legacy has its own place in her work. She executive-produced American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver, which aired on PBS on the 21st of January 2008. She also serves on the advisory board of the Sargent Shriver Peace Institute. It promotes the public service behind the Peace Corps, Job Corps, Head Start and Legal Services for the Poor.

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• 7. Politics and Marriage

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  A charity tennis tournament at Eunice Kennedy Shriver's home in 1977 was the setting for a fateful introduction. Tom Brokaw introduced Maria to the Austrian bodybuilder and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. They married on the 26th of April 1986 at St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church in Hyannis, Massachusetts. They have four children, two daughters and two sons, including Katherine and Patrick.

  Their politics did not always match. At the 2004 conventions she attended the Democratic gathering to watch her uncle Ted Kennedy speak. She also attended the Republican one to watch her husband. In 2008 the split became public. On the 31st of January, Schwarzenegger endorsed Senator John McCain for the Republican nomination. Three days later, on the 3rd of February, Shriver endorsed Senator Barack Obama at a UCLA rally. Her cousin Caroline Kennedy, Oprah Winfrey, Stevie Wonder and Michelle Obama joined her there.

  On the 9th of May 2011, after 25 years of marriage, the couple announced their separation. Shriver moved out of their Brentwood mansion. Four days later she posted a message to her Twitter followers: "Thank you all for the kindness, support and compassion. I am humbled by the love. Thank you."

  On the 17th of May 2011, Schwarzenegger publicly admitted that he had fathered Joseph Baena with Mildred "Patty" Baena, a longtime member of the household staff. She had become pregnant in 1997, before his election as governor. By the source's account he confessed only after Shriver confronted him. She had already confirmed her long-held suspicions in a conversation with Patty Baena. Shriver called the admission "painful and heartbreaking". She added, "As a mother, my concern is for the children. I ask for compassion, respect and privacy as my children and I try to rebuild our lives and heal."

  She filed for divorce on the 1st of July 2011, citing "irreconcilable differences". Legal disputes delayed the final decree until December 2021.

  In a 2018 interview with the Commonwealth Club of California, she revealed another change. She had switched her registration from Democrat to independent, because she believes both parties have good people and bad people.

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• 8. A Second Act

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  Shriver's 2007 return to news began on the 23rd of March, when she substituted as host of Larry King Live on CNN. Sheryl Crow joined her among the guests. After the heavy coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith, she said she would not go back to the news media. She later did.

  On the 30th of April 2013, NBC announced that she was rejoining the network as a special anchor on the shifting roles of women in American life. On the 18th of October of that year she sat at the Today anchor desk beside Matt Lauer, filling in for Savannah Guthrie. It was her first turn there since 1998.

  Recognition followed. In 2009 the Shinnyo-en Foundation gave her its Pathfinders to Peace Award. Its chief executive said, "In a world that glorifies ambition at any cost, Maria instead teaches character." In October 2004 a hybrid rose was named for her, with starchy-white blooms and a strong citrus fragrance. The Saint John's Health Center has a nursery in her name.

  Her books and productions kept coming. In 2018 she published I've Been Thinking...: Reflections Prayers and Meditations for a Meaningful Life, which immediately reached No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. A companion journal followed in January 2019. In 2018 she and her daughter Christina Schwarzenegger co-executive produced Take Your Pills, an hour-long documentary on psychostimulant medications. In May 2022 she was reported to be an early investor in Dave's Hot Chicken, alongside Drake and Samuel L. Jackson.

  Her newest book, I Am Maria, appeared from Penguin Publishing Group on the 1st of April 2025. Its subtitle promises reflections and poems on heartbreak, healing, and finding your way home.

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