Ria Wägner

Ria Wägner, born Maria Wägner, 1914 in Stockholm, was a Swedish Television hostess, TV-producer, writer and translator. She became Sweden's the first TV celebrity when hosting her popular cooking/family/culture program "Hemma" (At Home) in 1956, the first year of professional television in the country. In 1939 Ria Wägner became a master of philosophy at Lund University and married the journalist Staffan Rosén. After her academic degree she was employed at the newspaper Nya Dagligt Allehanda until 1941, when she received an editorial position at the publisher Åhlén & Åkerlund's. She was a TV-producer during the years 1956-1977. Ria Wägner and her husband Staffan Rosén had two sons, Martin (born 1942) and Harald (1943). The Wägner-Rosén couple divorced in 1946, when Ria Wägner decided to live with the author Gustav Gunnar Sandgren, with whom she received a daughter, Veronica (born 1948). Apart from being a TV-producer she published a large number of books about cooking and traveling.