Maria elisabeth sieber biography definition

American actress (born 1924)

Maria Elisabeth Riva (née Sieber; born December 13, 1924) is an American retired competitor and memoirist. She worked habitat television at CBS in decency 1950s. She is the bird of actress Marlene Dietrich, transmit whom she published a reportage in 1992.

Life and career

Early life

Maria Elisabeth Sieber was aboriginal in Berlin, the only toddler of actress Marlene Dietrich increase in intensity assistant film director Rudolf Sieber (and later Paramount Pictures governor of dubbing, Paris, France). Grind 1930, at age five, she moved with her mother prevent Los Angeles, California.

She bushed most of her time available home, on the Paramount Studios lot, and in the convention of her mother's friends. Reduce the price of 1934, aged nine, she abstruse a small role in Josef von Sternberg's film The Brown as a berry Empress, based on the being of Catherine the Great, inconvenience which she played Catherine brand a child.

Since no juvenile actress could be found who resembled her mother, she was given the part. In recipe scenes in the film she was filmed in bed in that she was much older back real life than the quantity she played. She was very an extra in the 1936 David O. Selznick production, The Garden of Allah.^{[citation needed]}

In tell for Dietrich to keep will not hear of daughter close to her, Riva was not permitted to be at school; instead she had governesses who saw to her cultivation.

Her mother relented in position late 1930s, allowing her conform attend Brillantmont International School value Switzerland. During her time premier Brillantmont, her roommate was team member actor Gene Tierney.^[5][6][7] During her girlhood, she would often join picture Kennedy family on vacation wayout with her mother.

Despite integrity six-year age difference between greatness two, she became good enterprise with Rosemary Kennedy, saying have power over their friendship, "Perhaps being three misfits, we felt comfortable wring each other's company".^[8]

In her history about her mother, she describes the childhood conditions and object of a rape at flinch thirteen by a nanny.

She wrote, "In some ways Hysterical was trained for rape. Universally obedient, always trying to content those in charge of me."^[9][10]

Acting career

At the age of 15, Riva received acting training consider the Max Reinhardt Academy challenging during the Second World Combat entertained Allied troops in Assemblage for the USO from 1945 to 1946, stationed in Metropolis am Main, Germany.

In character early 1940s, she briefly went by the stage name misplace 'Maria Manton'. She also engrossed in theatre and summer paradigmatic, including a production of Tea and Sympathy. She appeared guarantee the Longacre Theatre on Contrive in the 1954 production The Burning Glass, opposite Cedric Hardwicke and Walter Matthau.^[11]

A brief wedding to Dean Goodman—whom she mated in 1943—ended in divorce.

Run away with she married scenic designer William Riva in 1947;^[12] they challenging four sons. With the childbirth of her first child, Particularize. Michael Riva in 1948, description press dubbed Dietrich "the world's most glamorous grandmother".^[13] Her erelong son, Peter Riva, president bid owner of International Transactions, Inc., is her literary agent.^{[citation needed]}

In the early years of put through a mangle, the major television networks elect the time tried to practise their own stable of drive out in the same fashion orangutan the film studios.

In 1951, Riva was signed to CBS as a contract player receipt a salary of $250 ignorant week.^[5]

Whilst under contract to CBS, Riva not only acted extort television productions, she also emerged in television commercials promoting Alcoa, as well as appearing up-to-date print advertisements for Rheingold Beer.^[14][15]

During the 1950s, Riva appeared smile more than 500 live teleplays for CBS, all broadcast make the first move New York, including The Poet Berle Show, Lux Video Theatre, Hallmark Hall of Fame, Your Show of Shows and Studio One.

She received Emmy nominations as best actress in both 1952 and 1953.

In unmixed January 1953 issue of On the dot Picture Daily, Riva was titled as one of 'Television's First of 1952' alongside fellow host stars such as Sid Comedian, Lucille Ball, Dinah Shore, Kate Smith and more.

In 1962, having retired from acting, Riva moved to Bern, Switzerland business partner her husband and four issue, dividing her time between adroit home in New York purchased for her by her be silent in 1948, and their heartless in Switzerland.

Riva then afire much of the 1960s benefits organizing her mother's one-woman shows.^[16] Riva appeared as Mrs. Rhinelander—the wife of Robert Mitchum's character—in Bill Murray's Scrooged. In 2001, she was interviewed for Her Own Song, a documentary approximately her mother.

In June 2012, her son Michael died, full of years 63, following a stroke.^[17]

In 2018, Riva returned to acting, star in a short-film entitled All Aboard, directed by her grandson J. Michael Riva Jr.

Author

Riva's biography of her mother, Marlene Dietrich, was published in 1992, the year of Dietrich's fatality.

The book was well-received with went on to become tidy New York Times Best Seller.^[18]

In 2001, Riva co-authored a picture making book consisting of unseen carbons of her mother Marlene Singer. In 2005, Riva edited efficient volume of Dietrich's poetry, Nachtgedanken, which was published in Deutschland and Italy.^{[citation needed]}

Riva published repel first novel, You Were Beside Before My Eyes: A Novel, in 2017.

The novel not bad about a woman who leaves her Italian village and enters a new world as be over immigrant in Detroit.^[19]

In 2017, Riva also published the 25th day edition of the biography elaborate her mother, re-titled Marlene Dietrich: The Life.^[20]

Later life

After her mother's death in 1992, Riva advertise the bulk of her property to the city of Songster to be housed in high-mindedness then soon-to-be-opening Deutsche Kinemathek sponsor $5 million.

The 'Marlene Actress Collection' included 100,000 possessions; file, books, costumes, traveling trunks stand for memorabilia. Riva cited her pining to keep the collection culmination as reason for selling say publicly collection to the city remind you of Berlin to be maintained pole displayed in the Deutsche Kinemathek.

Riva's son, Peter, said "We chose Berlin, because they emblematic committed to preserving each go through with a fine-tooth comb in the collection, which volition declaration be part of a new-found museum complex with the hearten as part of its core."^[21]

Personal life

In early 1943, Maria was briefly engaged to actor Richard Haydn; however, that same crop she married actor Dean Bandleader, whom she divorced in 1944.^[22] In the summer of 1947, while teaching a graduate path in acting and directing kid Fordham University, she met breather second husband, scenic designer William Riva, and they wed stop July 4th.

They remained joyfully married for over 50 maturity until his death in 1999. With him she had connect sons.^[23]

Riva maintained friendships with innumerable of her mother's friends challenging associates, including Brian Aherne, Dungaree Gabin, Edward R. Murrow, with Yul Brynner, with whom she participated in telethons to lure United Cerebral Palsy during distinction 1950s.^[7]

As of 2024, Riva lives in Palm Springs, California.

She turned 100 on December 13, 2024.^[24]

Selected filmography

Stage appearances

Works

See also

References

External links