The niece of the late president John F. Kennedy and the daughter of R. Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Maria Shriver grew up in Washington, D.C., and attended Georgetown as an undergraduate. Shriver subsequently established herself as an eminent broadcast journalist -- first as a producer for local stations in Philadelphia and Baltimore, then as a reporter for The CBS Morning News (in the early '80s), and finally for NBC, on the programs NBC Nightly News and Sunday Today. By the early '90s, Shriver had dramatically reduced her on-air activity, though she still occasionally tackled special reporting assignments for MSNBC and Dateline; she placed greater emphasis and weight (as did the media) on her marriage to Austrian bodybuilder-turned-action star Arnold Schwarzenegger (the two wed in 1986). Despite the democratic background of her family, Shriver threw her full support behind Republican Schwarzenegger when he won the California gubernatorial seat during the 2003 election, and focused much of her attention on addressing social causes as the governor's wife.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide