CDA: Maria Riva

I was saddened this morning to read about the death of Maria Riva. She died last week at the age of 100. She was an actress and producer but best known as the only child of Marlene Dietrich. I always describe Dietrich as "my first movie star" - - the Milwaukee PBS station used to show a week of old movies starring the same person in summer afternoons and I was maybe 12 or 13 when they showed a week of Dietrich movies. I was a goner.

Riva wrote a startling biography of her mother a year after Dietrich's death. It's a fascinating book - - it's brutally honest without being mean-spirited, she tells the truth about Dietrich, as a person and as a mother, doesn't let her get away with anything, but also has some perspective on who she was and what drove her.

Here she is talking with Diane Sawyer about Dietrich and her book: