Maria Riva, Daughter of Marlene Dietrich and Actress, Dies at 100 Victoria EdelOctober 30, 2025 at 10:09 PM 5 Eric Robert/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images Maria Riva.
- - Maria Riva, Daughter of Marlene Dietrich and Actress, Dies at 100
Victoria EdelOctober 30, 2025 at 10:09 PM
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Eric Robert/Sygma/Sygma via Getty Images
Maria Riva.
Maria Riva, the only child of famed actress Marlene Dietrich, has died at the age of 100 — just weeks before she was set to turn 101 on Dec. 13.
A two-time Emmy nominee in the early 1950s for her work on television, the actress died of natural causes in her sleep on Wednesday, Oct. 29 at the New Mexico home of her son, author and literary agent Peter Riva.
"We will all miss Maria's intelligence, advice and depth of human understanding," he wrote in a statement, obtained by The Wrap. "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 — always ready with food, warmth, advice and love, which were her truest gifts to all the lives that she touched," he added.
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Maria Riva and her mother Marlene Dietrich.
Riva was born Maria Sieber in Berlin in 1924 to Dietrich and director Rudolf Sieber. Her parents, who famouly both had many high-profile affairs, ended the romantic aspect of their relationship and mostly lived apart, but remained good friends.
Not long after Dietrich's death in 1992, Riva published a biography of her mother in which she documented their difficult relationship.
Her childhood, Riva recalled, was dominated by her mother, whom she described as cold and often self-absorbed. "I don't use the word 'mother' for Dietrich," she told PEOPLE in 1993. "That is a special word that implies love shown to one person, and that is not what I remember."
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From left: Marlene Dietrich, Rudolph Sieber and Maria Riva in 1931.
Dietrich moved herself and her daughter to Hollywood in 1931. Riva was not sent to school and was instead educated by governesses so she could be by her mother's side as much as possible. Riva wrote that her mother had a uniform made for her that read "attendant to Miss Marlene Dietrich."
The close proximity meant Riva met many celebrities because of her mother, and became friends with Rosemary Kennedy, sister of John F. Kennedy. She also made a handful of appearances in her mother's films.
But there was moments of darkness. When she was 15, one of Riva's governesses raped her — something Riva kept from Dietrich. "My mother wouldn't have believed me," Riva told PEOPLE in 1993. "She had this ability to mentally erase anything she didn't like to hear. I've never been judgmental of that woman who raped me. But I do blame [my mother], who made it possible for [that woman] to take what was placed before her."
Riva struggled with drinking at a young age. She married Dean Goodman in 1943, but they divorced the next year. She stopped drinking soon after.
Following in her mother's footsteps, Riva took acting classes and moved to New York. While at Fordham University, she met William Riva, a set designer. They married in 1947.
Riva had a strong acting career in New York. She appeared on Broadway twice and then signed a contract at CBS. "Nobody wanted to do television," she told the Television Academy in a 1993 interview, adding, "In 1951, if you saw anyone on television that was famous from motion pictures, you knew that their career was over. No one appeared on television unless they were finished and needed the money."
"They tried to build their own stable of actors [on TV]," she explained. After she did her first show in 1951, CBS asked her to become a contract player, paying her $250 a week. "For this, we were on call," she recalled. "I was the blonde." She and her castmates were placed in over 500 teleplays, and she also appeared in commercials. She received best actress Emmy nominations in 1952 and 1953 for her work.
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Maria Riva.
With her husband, Riva welcomed four sons: Michael, Paul, Peter and David. She quit acting and moved to Europe to raise her family in the '60s. Still, her mother often had demands of her, to her family's chagrin.
"It drove us nuts sometimes to see our mother enslaved and always at her beck and call," Riva's son Peter told PEOPLE in 1993. "She called at any hour of the night, barked orders, gave commands and then hung up on us. She sure wasn't cuddly."
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Maria Riva in 1959.
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Dietrich died in 1992 at age 90. Despite their tense relationship, she asked her daughter to pen her biography. "She knew I would write about her professional side correctly, because I respected that part of her," Riva told PEOPLE in 1993. "But in my book, there is no such thing as being exempt from exposure if you deserve it, no matter who you are."
Aside from that book, Riva also co-authored a 2001 book of unseen photos of her mother and edited a volume of her mother's poetry that was published in 2005. In 2017, she published a novel. She also published a 25th-anniversary edition of her biography of her mother in 2017.
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Maria Riva.
In 1988, Riva returned to acting for the Bill Murray movie Scrooged. She also appeared in the 2018 short All Aboard, directed by one of her grandsons.
Riva's husband William died in 1999. Her son Michael, who became a production designer like his father, died in 2012.
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