SACRAMENTO - Maria Shriver was sidelined as a network TV journalist when her movie star husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, suddenly decided to jump into politics - the business of her family.
Being first lady of California, a job that usually involves more pomp than policy, was not an easy fit for the ambitious feminist who had worked hard to carve out an identity separate from her Democratic family dynasty as a Kennedy and a Shriver.
The new role was not one she necessarily coveted, but she made it her own.
"You've got to be kidding! That's not me! I didn't grow up wanting to be first lady of anything!" she wrote in her 2008 book "Just Who Will You Be?" about her sentiments after her husband was elected in the 2003 recall. "But there I found myself, and I didn't have a clue what to do."
What she did not do was seek to fit in in Sacramento, a company town where politics and state government are the core business. She and the couple's four children, now ages 13, 17, 19 and 21, never made the move to the state capital, instead jetting in for special events while Schwarzenegger flew home most nights on his private plane.
In a joint statement Monday night announcing their separation after 25 years of marriage, Shriver and Schwarzenegger said they will keep raising their four children together, calling them "the light and the center of both of our lives."
Still, Maria was never far in spirit from the governor's expansive Capitol office, where an enormous Andy Warhol portrait of her hung over proceedings, and she was said to weigh in frequently with opinions on policy.
Richard Costigan, Schwarzenegger's legislative director from 2003 to 2006, said Shriver helped the governor's staff understand his priorities, many of which aligned with Shriver family interests such as the Special Olympics and community service.
"Early on it was more about protecting the governor, and making sure there was a balanced approach to the way policy issues were approached," he said. "Social safety net programs, people involved in service, those issues that she grew up with were important."
She was instrumental in restructuring her husband's administration after Schwarzenegger promoted a failed slate of ballot initiatives in a 2005 special election. Shriver helped persuade him to bring on a Democratic chief of staff and restore his image as a centrist Republican.
She also urged him to admit he was wrong, which he did the day after the election.
"It appeared that she was the governor's most important political and policy adviser," said Dan Schnur, director of the University of Southern California's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and a Republican whom Schwarzenegger temporarily appointed to the Fair Political Practices Commission last year.
Frank Mankiewicz, press secretary for Shriver's uncle, the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, said in a statement that he met Shriver when she was about six years old and watched her grow into a mature journalist and caring human being.
"I have no doubt she will get through this difficult transition. Her strength and skill and, above all, her good humor, will continue to mark her life," Mankiewicz wrote.
During the seven years Schwarzenegger held office, Shriver took on various official projects as first lady, including revamping the California Museum in downtown Sacramento, which is now called the California Museum for History, Women and the Arts. Shriver noticed "the glaring absence of any type of commemoration of California women and the role they have played in the state's history," according to the museum's website.
She and Schwarzenegger also launched the California Hall of Fame, honoring famous Californians from all walks of life during an annual red carpet ceremony at the museum.
The first lady's women's conference grew to a massive, glamorous event called the Women's Conference, where thousands of well-heeled women lunched in Long Beach while listening to the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Bono, Gloria Steinem, the Dalai Lama and former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Shriver's office started WE Connect to link poor California families to programs and services from state and federal governments that many didn't know about. It continues after her departure, now operated by the nonprofit California Endowment.
Those projects evolved after a rocky start, in which Shriver acknowledged she had grave concerns about exposing her own family to a political life that she equated with separation and loss. She is a child of the Kennedy Democratic dynasty - the daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who was the sister of President John F. Kennedy, and of Sargent Shriver, the first head of the Peace Corps and vice presidential candidate in 1972.
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