Stalin's Daughter Dies In US - RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty

The only daughter of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin has died in the United States.

Officials in the state of Wisconsin said Lana Peters died of colon cancer on November 22 at the age of 85.

Born Svetlana Stalina, she defected to the United States in 1967, during the Cold War, and denounced her father and communist rule in the Soviet Union.

She wrote two memoirs about her life that were big sellers in the United States and reportedly made her a wealthy woman.

She took the name of her mother -- Alliluyeva -- following the death of her tyrant father in 1953, after some three decades in power in which he was blamed for the deaths of millions of people.

In 1970, she married William Peters, who was an apprentice of acclaimed U.S. architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

She was married at least four times and had three children.

In 1984, she went home to the Soviet Union but left after staying for a year and returned to the United States.

compiled from agency reports