Cosma Shiva Hagen () is a German-American actress and voice actress. Although she speaks English, her acting roles have been largely confined to German-language films and television productions. She also starred in an Irish film called ''Short Order'' (2005).

Personal life

Born in Los Angeles, California, Cosma Shiva Hagen is the daughter of German singer

Nina Hagen Catharina "Nina" Hagen (; born 11 March 1955) is a German singer, songwriter, and actress. She is known for her theatrical vocals and rose to prominence during the Punk subculture, punk and New wave music, new wave movements in the late 1970s a ...

and Dutch musician Ferdinand Karmelk. As a child, she lived in London, Berlin, Paris,

Ibiza Ibiza (natively and officially in ca, Eivissa, ) is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is from the city of Valencia. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, in Spain. Its l ...

Lüneburg Lüneburg (officially the ''Hanseatic City of Lüneburg'', German: ''Hansestadt Lüneburg'', , Low German ''Lümborg'', Latin ''Luneburgum'' or ''Lunaburgum'', Old High German ''Luneburc'', Old Saxon ''Hliuni'', Polabian ''Glain''), also calle ...

and

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. Her grandmother was actress

Eva-Maria Hagen Eva-Maria Hagen (; ; 19 October 1934 – 16 August 2022) was a German actress and singer. She was known as the "Brigitte Bardot of the GDR" but was banned from performance for political reasons. Life Hagen was born Eva-Maria Buchholz in Köl ...

and her step-grandfather is the East German dissident writer and singer-songwriter

Wolf Biermann Karl Wolf Biermann (; born 15 November 1936) is a German singer-songwriter, poet, and former East German dissident. He is perhaps best known for the 1968 song "Ermutigung" and his expatriation from East Germany in 1976. Early life Biermann was b ...

. Hagen's unusual name was picked by her mother, who claimed she saw a

UFO An unidentified flying object (UFO), more recently renamed by US officials as a UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon), is any perceived aerial phenomenon that cannot be immediately identified or explained. On investigation, most UFOs are id ...

while pregnant. "Cosma" is a reference to the

cosmos The cosmos (, ) is another name for the Universe. Using the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity. The cosmos, and understandings of the reasons for its existence and significance, are studied in ...

, and "Shiva" is a reference to the

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

god

Shiva Shiva (; sa, शिव, lit=The Auspicious One, Śiva ), also known as Mahadeva (; ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐ, or Hara, is one of the principal deities of Hinduism. He is the Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions within Hindu ...

. Hagen's great-grandfather

Hermann Carl Hagen Hermann Carl Hagen (born Hermann Levy; February 19, 1886May 28, 1942) was a German banker, bank archivist, and economist who was murdered during the Holocaust at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Personal life Hermann Levy was born on Febru ...

, a German-Jewish banker and economist, was murdered at

Sachsenhausen concentration camp Sachsenhausen () or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a German Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, used from 1936 until April 1945, shortly before the defeat of Nazi Germany in May later that year. It mainly held political prisoners ...

in 1945. Her non-Jewish great-grandmother Hedwig Elise Caroline Staadt, wife of Hermann Hagen, was also murdered at Sachsenhausen. Her paternal grandfather Hans Hagen was a Holocaust survivor, being held at a prison in

Moabit Moabit () is an inner city locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany. As of 2016, around 77,000 people lived in Moabit. First inhabited in 1685 and incorporated into Berlin in 1861, the former industrial and working-class neighbourhood i ...

between 1941 and 1945 until liberation by the Soviets.

Selected filmography

* ''

Das merkwürdige Verhalten geschlechtsreifer Großstädter zur Paarungszeit ''Das merkwürdige Verhalten geschlechtsreifer Großstädter zur Paarungszeit'' (English title – ''Love Scenes from Planet Earth'') is a 1998 German romantic comedy film. It earned the director Marc Rothemund a Bavarian Film Award for "Best ...

'' (1998), as Sandra * ''

7 Dwarves – Men Alone in the Wood ''7 Dwarves – Men Alone In the Woods'' (german: 7 Zwerge – Männer allein im Wald), is a German comedy film, created in 2004 by Otto Waalkes, which follows the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves by the Brothers Grimm. The film, crea ...

'' (2004), as Snow White

References

External links

*
Biography on Rosenthalusa.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hagen, Cosma Shiva American emigrants to Germany German film actresses Living people Actresses from Hamburg Actresses from Los Angeles German people of Jewish descent Hagen family Waldorf school alumni German television actresses 20th-century German actresses 21st-century German actresses American people of German-Jewish descent American people of Dutch descent German people of Dutch descent American film actresses Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Year of birth missing (living people)