Icon of the Week: Maria Shriver
My friend said she’s going as Maria Shriver for Halloween, so I’ll make her my icon.
(Can you pick out Eunice?)
Maria Shriver was the daughter of Sargent Shriver (from whence she begot her name) and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Eunice Kennedy Shriver was the fifth child in the most famous of all of the Kennedy Clans. All of her older siblings died horrible deaths (JFK, Joseph and Kathleen), or were lobotomized (Rose). Her little brother Bobby was shot while he was walking through the kitchen of the hotel. By the end of the 1960s, she was the oldest child remaining to Joseph P. Kennedy; father, lover, and former ambassador to England.
(There’s Maria, second from the left)
In other words, Maria Shriver is the niece of JFK, and the first cousin of JFK Jr.
The scary part about all of the information above is that I didn’t even need to look it up on Wikipedia. I knew it all already after reading Reckless Youth by Nigel Hamilton, a brash biography of JFK in his early years. Good read, highly recommend.
(Maria with her Uncle Jack and her cousin Caroline).
Maria Shriver, in my opinion, was the most beautiful thing a Kennedy ever created if you exclude JFK Jr., who was the most beautiful thing ever created in the whole world.
Everyone thought that Arnold Schwartzenegger was merely a gigantic Austrian bodybuilder. But he was no fool when he married Maria. In retrospect, “I will be back” seem heavily loaded with political ambition.
But to give them credit, they always do look very happy together.
A lot can be said about Maria Shriver’s illustrious career and good works (Hey now, Fidel!)
But what I’m really interested in here is how Maria Shriver got more and more beautiful as she got older.
Until she didn’t, and here we are today, with our friend’s Halloween Costume.
For you, Maria Shriver. For carrying the weight of the Kennedy brood. For crucifixes, for being openly Catholic. For marrying a body builder, which must have bewildered your family. For you parents, who lived well past their prime, for your children. For struggling, I can only imagine, with the pressures of being thin on camera. For aging with grace, for getting prettier as you hit your middle years, Maria Shriver, you’re my Icon of the Week.
