Actress Maria Riva, only child of Marlene Dietrich, dead at 100

Maria Riva, the only child of movie legend Marlene Dietrich and a top personality during the early days of television, died Wednesday. She was 100.

Riva died at her son’s home in Gila, New Mexico. She had been living with her son, Peter Riva, for the past year.

Calling herself a self-described “handmaiden” to her mother, Riva wrote a biography in 1992 shortly after her mother’s death -- “Marlene Dietrich: The Life” -- that aimed to demystify Dietrich’s glamorous legend, presenting a portrait of a complicated woman.

Riva also appeared in films, and her credits included roles in “Scrooged” (1988); and “The Scarlett Empress” (1934), when she was a child actor in a film headlined by her mother. She also appeared in six episodes of “Suspense” (1949), a television series in which live plays featured people who were in dangerous and threatening situations.

She also starred as a woman in peril on anthology series such as “Studio One,” “Lux Video Theatre” and “The Philco Television Playhouse.”

Riva was born Maria Sieber in Berlin on Dec. 13, 1924, to Dietrich and director Rudolf Sieber.

Riva said her childhood was dominated by her mother, whom she described as cold and often self-absorbed.

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

Riva was a two-time Emmy Award nominee for best actress in 1952 and 1953 for her television work.

“Nobody wanted to do television,” she told the Television Academy in a 1993 interview. “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).”

After her first show in 1951, CBS hired her as a contract worker for $250 a week.

“For this, we were on call,” Riva said. ”I was the blonde.”

Riva said that the book about her mother allowed her to “step back as a biographer.”

“What was wrong was wrong, what was right was right, what was great was great, what was brilliant was brilliant, “she said in a 2009 talk with the Television Academy Foundation website The Interviews. “(People) don’t understand how it is possible to be a child of an ephemeral creature that is beyond normalcy. It’s very difficult.”

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