Maria Shriver Biography

Journalist, first lady. Born Maria Owings Shriver on November 6, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois. Shriver is the daughter of prominent politican and diplomat Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, sister of John F. and Robert Kennedy.Maria Shrive graduated from Georgetown University in June 1977 with a B.A. in American studies and began her career as a newswriter and producer for Philadelphia's KYW-TV later that year. In 1978, she started work at Baltimore's WJZ-TV, where she wrote and produced the Baltimore-based show Evening Magazine. In September 1983, Shriver began reporting for CBS News and soon won a spot as co-anchor of the CBS Morning News.

In 1986, she joined NBC News as a correspondent for the news show 1986 and an anchor for Main Street, a news magazine aimed at young people. From 1987 to 1990, she served as a co-anchor on NBC's Sunday Today. In 1990, she began hosting a series of news specials entitled First Person with Maria Shriver.
 Since then she has conducted numerous notable interviews including spots with Fidel Castro, Ted Turner, Magic Johnson, and Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York.

Shriver was a reporter for NBC's Dateline NBC from 1989 until August of 2003, when she took a leave of absence when her husband, actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, became a candidate in the California recall election. Upon his inauguration as the 38th Governor of California on November 17, 2003, Shriver became the First Lady of California. A few months later, she resigned from NBC citing a conflict of interest between her role as a journalist and her status as First Lady.