Maria Riva, Daughter of Marlene Dietrich, Dies at 100

The world has lost a remarkable woman. Maria Riva, the only child of legendary actress Marlene Dietrich, died peacefully in her sleep on Wednesday, October 29, at her son’s home in Gila, New Mexico. She was 100 years old, just weeks shy of what would have been her 101st birthday on December 13.

A Life in the Shadow of Stardom

Born Maria Elisabeth Sieber in Berlin on December 13, 1924, Maria Riva never quite escaped the long shadow cast by her famous mother. The daughter of Marlene Dietrich and director Rudolf Sieber, she grew up in a world where glamour and loneliness often walked hand in hand.

Her childhood was anything but ordinary. As a small child, she was brought to Hollywood to be near her mother, who had become a star at Paramount Pictures. Rather than attending school like other children, Maria Riva was educated by governesses, always kept close to Dietrich’s side. She even wore a uniform that read “attendant to Miss Marlene Dietrich.”

The closeness brought her into contact with celebrities and allowed her small roles in her mother’s films, including “The Scarlet Empress” (1934) and “The Garden of Allah” (1936). But it also meant witnessing the darker sides of fame. At 15, one of her governesses raped her. She never told her mother, believing Dietrich wouldn’t have believed her.

Finding Her Own Path

Despite the trauma and the weight of her mother’s fame, Maria Riva carved out her own successful career. She became one of early television’s brightest stars, signing a contract with CBS in the 1950s when the medium was still finding its footing. She appeared in hundreds of episodes across classic anthology series like “Studio One,” “Lux Video Theatre,” and “The Philco Television Playhouse.”

She earned Emmy nominations for best actress in both 1952 and 1953. Her face graced the cover of “Life” magazine alongside her mother’s in a striking mirror-image photograph. Yet she remained humble about her talents, once saying, “I had no talent.” Those who worked with her would have disagreed.

In the 1960s, she made a choice that surprised many. She walked away from acting, unwilling to move to Los Angeles as the television industry migrated west. She had learned an important lesson growing up among the wealthy and famous: “It’s not what it looks like on the surface.”

A Complex Mother-Daughter Relationship

The relationship between Maria Riva and Marlene Dietrich was complicated, to say the least. After Dietrich died in Paris in May 1992 at age 90, Maria Riva published a biography that pulled back the curtain on their difficult bond.

“I don’t use the word ‘mother’ for Dietrich,” she told PEOPLE magazine in 1993. “That is a special word that implies love shown to one person, and that is not what I remember.”

The book was honest, sometimes painfully so. It described Dietrich as cold and self-absorbed, a woman who erased anything unpleasant from her mind. Yet Maria Riva approached the work as a biographer first, documenting both the brilliance and the flaws with equal measure.

A Full Life Beyond the Spotlight

Maria Riva married set designer William Riva in 1947, and their union lasted until his death in 1999. Together, they raised four sons: Michael, Paul, Peter, and David. Her eldest son, J. Michael Riva, became an accomplished production designer who worked on films like “Scrooged” (1988), which featured his mother in a rare return to acting.

She remained active in her later years, co-authoring a 2001 photography book with previously unseen images of her mother, editing a volume of Dietrich’s poetry in 2005, and publishing a period novel in 2017. In 2018, at 93, she acted again in the short film “All Aboard,” directed by her grandson.

Remembering Maria Riva

Maria Riva lived a century filled with extraordinary experiences, painful memories, and hard-won wisdom. She navigated the impossible task of being the daughter of an icon while creating her own legacy. She was a television pioneer, an author, a mother, and a woman who understood that life’s truest gifts are “food, warmth, advice and love.”

According to The Wrap, her son, Peter Riva, shared the following statement:

“We will all miss Maria’s intelligence, advice and depth of human understanding. The family is comforted knowing that she now goes to join her husband of 50 years, William, and her eldest son Michael and her parents, Marlene and Rudi. It is with sadness that we as a family have had to face our mother’s eventual passing, for she was always the one person we all could always count on being there.”

Maria Riva is survived by her sons Peter, John-Paul, and David; grandchildren Matthew, Sean, Samantha, William, Michael Jr., Adam, and Daniel; and great-grandchildren Lily, Ayla, Aidan, and Marilee. She was predeceased by her husband William, her son Michael, and her parents, Marlene Dietrich and Rudolf Sieber.