Maria Elisabeth Riva (née Sieber; born December 13, 1924) is an American retired actress and memoirist.

[citation needed] In order for Dietrich to keep her daughter close to her, Riva was not permitted to attend school; instead she had governesses who saw to her education.

Despite the six-year age difference between the two, she became good friends with Rosemary Kennedy, saying of their friendship, "Perhaps being two misfits, we felt comfortable in each other's company".

"[9][10] At the age of 15, Riva received acting training at the Max Reinhardt Academy and during the Second World War entertained Allied troops in Europe for the USO from 1945 to 1946, stationed in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

She appeared at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway in the 1954 production The Burning Glass, opposite Cedric Hardwicke and Walter Matthau.

With the birth of her first child, J. Michael Riva in 1948, the press dubbed Dietrich "the world's most glamorous grandmother".

In a January 1953 issue of Motion Picture Daily, Riva was named as one of 'Television's Best of 1952' alongside fellow television stars such as Sid Caesar, Lucille Ball, Dinah Shore, Kate Smith and more.

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

[20] After her mother's death in 1992, Riva sold the bulk of her estate to the city of Berlin to be housed in the then soon-to-be-opening Deutsche Kinemathek for $5 million.

[22] In the summer of 1947, while teaching a graduate course in acting and directing at Fordham University, she met her second husband, scenic designer William Riva, and they wed on July 4th.

[23] Riva maintained friendships with many of her mother's friends and associates, including Brian Aherne, Jean Gabin, Edward R. Murrow, and Yul Brynner, with whom she participated in telethons to benefit United Cerebral Palsy during the 1950s.