Soad Hosny

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Soad Hosny
File:Soad Hosny.jpg
Soad Hosny in 1970
Native name سُعاد حسني
Born Soad Muhammad Kamal Hosny Kamal El Baba
(1943-01-26)26 January 1943
Cairo, Egypt
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
London, England
Nationality Egyptian
Occupation
  • Actress
  • singer
Years active 1959–1991
Notable work Full list
Spouse(s) Salah Kurayyem (m. 1968; div. 1969)
Ali Badrakhan (m. 1970; div. 1981)
Zaki Fatin Abdel Wahab (m. 1981; div. 1981)
Maher Awad (m. 1987)
Parent(s)
Relatives Nagat El-Sagheera (half-sister)

Soad Hosny (Arabic: سعاد حسني‎‎, pronounced [soˈʕæːd ˈħosni]; 26 January 1943[1] – 21 June 2001) was an Egyptian[2] actress born in Cairo. She was known as the "Cinderella of Egyptian cinema" and one of the most influential actresses in the Middle East and the Arab world.[3] She ascended to stardom at the end of the 1950s, performing in more than 83 films between 1959 and 1991 with a credit of 9 films in the greatest 100 films in the history of Egyptian Cinema. A majority of her films were shot in the 1960s and 1970s. Her final screen appearance was in the 1991 film, The Shepherd and the Women, directed by her ex-husband, Ali Badrakhan.[4]

Early life

Soad Muhammad Kamal Hosny was born in Bulaq district in Cairo, Egypt to Mohammad Hosni, a noted Islamic calligrapher, and his second wife, an Egyptian, Gawhara Mohamed Hassan.[5][6] [7]

Her father was of Kurdish descent, born in Damascus, then in Ottoman Syria who had emigrated to Egypt with his father, Hosni al-Baba, leaving part of his extended family in Damascus. [8] Her paternal family, the al-Baba clan, were a notable artistic family in Damascus.[9] Her parents divorced and her mother remarried, to an Egyptian man, Abdul Monem Hafeez, with whom she had six more children, thus giving Soad and her two sisters no fewer than 14 half-siblings.[10]

Following her parent’s separation and divorce, when Soad was aged about four years, her father returned to Damascus, taking his children with him. The family remained in Damascus for a number of years before finally returning to Cairo. [11] After her family’s return to Egypt, her father purchased a house in Cairo’s Khan el Khalili district.

Her father's household was known as "the artists' home" because leading artists from across the Arab world regularly visited Hosni's home in Cairo for tuition and social interaction with the master calligrapher. Her father, whose artistic output included the production of frames for the silent movies and book covers, was well known across the artistic community. A number of his children became performance artists. Soad's half-sister, Najat, was an actress and singer.[12] Her half-brother, Ezz Eddin Hosni (1927–2013), was a music composer and taught both Soad and Najat music and singing. Another sibling, Sami Hosni became a cello player, jewellery designer and also calligrapher.[13] while yet another brother, Farooq, was a painter and his daughter Samira was also an actress.[14]

Career

File:SoadHosny&SahZulfikar.jpg
Soad Hosny with Salah Zulfikar in Appointment at the Tower (1962)

At the age of three, she began her career when she sang in the popular children's TV program, Papa Sharo. Her work included a wide range of genres – from light comedies and romances through to political satire.[15] Her film debut was in Hasan and Naeima (1959).[16] She is credited with acting in films with the most notable Egyptian film stars such as Omar Sharif, Salah Zulfikar and Rushdy Abaza. Her most well-known role was that of a college student who fell in love with her professor in the film, Hassan El Imam’s Watch Out for ZouZou (1972).[17]

Other important film credits include her roles in Hassan Al-Imam's Money and Women (1960) opposite Salah Zulfikar who she starred with in Appointment at the Tower of Ezz El-Dine Zulficar (1962). In 1964, she starred alongside Nadia Lutfi in Mahmoud Zulfikar's For Men Only, the film was a box office hit where she played a role of a girl disguised in a man's appearance to have the opportunity to work in a gas project. Hosny starred in Too Young for Love (1966) opposite Rushdy Abaza.

In 1970, she starred alongside Salah Zulfikar and Rushdy Abaza and in the political film; Sunset and Sunrise (1970) of Kamal El Sheikh. She worked in two films with Youssef Chahine during her career starting with The Choice (1970), and One Day, the Nile (1972) with Salah Zulfikar. In 1974, she starred in Kamal El Sheikh's Whom Should We Shoot? (1974) alongside Mahmoud Yassin. Her next role was a student and political activist, who was tortured in Karnak (1975), the film was based on the novel by Naguib Mahfouz. In the film, Shafika and Metwali (1979) with Ahmed Zaki and People on the Top (1981) with Nour El-Sherif, she transformed the musical numbers into scathing satires which gave voice to the oppressed. For this and her other hard-hitting, politically relevant roles, she was seen as part of the intelligentsia.[15]

File:Suad Husni honored by Sadat.jpg
Soad Hosny shaking hands with President Anwar Sadat, c. 1979

During her lifetime, she was known as the "Cinderella of the screen". She starred in films of every important Egyptian director during the 60s and 70s and played women in complex plots. In her later career, she played women who had been abused or victimised.[18] Due to illness, she retired from acting in the 1991.[19] Hosny's final screen appearance was in The Shepherd and the Women.[4]

Personal life

File:Souad hosni with Ali Badrakhan.jpg
Soad Hosny with Ali Badrakhan

Soad Hosny was married four times.[20] Around 1968, she was married to cinematographer Salah Kurayyem; the marriage lasted for approximately one year. In 1970, Hosny was married to the Egyptian film director Ali Badrakhan; this marriage lasted for approximately eleven years. She was then married to Zaki Fatin Abdel Wahab, son of Fateen Abdel Wahab and Leila Mourad in 1981. This marriage lasted only five months.[citation needed] Persistent rumours claim that her first marriage was to the actor and singer, Abdel Halim Hafez (1929-1977), popularly known as "al Andaleeb al Asmar" [the tan nightingale], whom she is believed to have married in secret.[21] However, her family have denied the veracity of such rumours. [22]

She was romantically linked with various celebrities including the Egyptian film star, Abdel Halim Hafez.[23] Despite never wearing a wedding dress in all her marriages, Hosni wore the wedding dress many times on screen through her films, and her first film husband was the Egyptian film star Salah Zulfikar in Money and Women of 1960. The rumor of her marriage to Abdel Halim Hafez was not the first in her life. In late 1962, a strong rumor spread in the Egyptian press about her marriage to Salah Zulfikar while filming Appointment at the Tower. Filming of the film scenes began in the Cairo Tower, and the team continued for two weeks on board the ship "Aida" in the Mediterranean, and after filming ended, the rumor of her marriage to Salah Zulfikar spread in newspapers and magazines at the time. Zulfikar did not forget the nature of his previous work as a police officer and began with his sense of security to investigate the source of the rumor, to make sure that the lighting worker in the film crew was the owner of the rumor after a kiss was filmed between Zulfikar and Soad Hosny, where the kiss lasted for 3 minutes, until Zulfikar sensed it took them too long and told the cinematographer, "Stop", and so the worker built this rumor because of the shot, but this rumor was denied and later, the two film stars participated in more than one film together.[24] Her fourth and final marriage was to Prof Fatin Abdel Wahab.[25]

Death

Stuart Tower in Westminster, England

On 21 June 2001, Soad Hosny died after falling from the balcony of her friend Nadia Yousri's apartment in Stuart Tower building in London. Her death was surrounded by controversy, with authorities initially failing to provide details of how she fell; an omission that fuelled media speculation and rumors that her death may have been a suicide or murder, rather than accidental.[26] Soad's body was flown home to Cairo[20] and her funeral there was attended by over 10,000 people. She was buried in a family's plot of land on the outskirts of Cairo.[27] She had no children and was survived by her last husband, writer Maher Awad, whom she married in 1987.[28][29]

Legacy

In 2013, Lebanese filmmaker Rania Stephan used snippets from Hosny's films to re-tell Hosny's story and the history of Egyptian cinema in The Three Disappearances of Soad Hosny.[30] It was featured in Berlin's Art Week.[31] The Three Disappearances is an important archive, which while following the chronology of Hosni's career, simultaneously documents the costumes, sets and styles used from the 1950s to the 1990s, a period that marked the peak and decline of Egyptian cinema.[32]

One of Hosny's songs, I'm going down to the Square became a popular "anthem" during the Arab Spring of 2011.[32]

Filmography

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Main article: Soad Hosny filmography

She appeared in more than 80 films.[16]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Ahmad Al Samehi. Profile, Al-Ahram, 6 December 2012, Issue No. 46021: "Brother of Najat Al Saghira and Soad Hosny: I taught singing to Najat". Retrieved 4 July 2015. (in Arabic)
  6. ↑ "Mohammad Hosni the Calligrapher", City Talks, 24 June 2015, Retrieved 10 July 2015 While Soad’s birth certificate states that both parents were See: ”Soad’s Birth Certificate”, ELFAGR.org, 26 January, 2017 <Online: https://www.elfagr.org/2442336>, other evidence indicates that her father only became a naturalised Egyptian in the 1960s
  7. ↑ Beilun, M., "Soad Hosni .. From the Orchards of the Levant to the Foothills of the Pyramids" [Book Review], Online:
  8. ↑ http://www.citytalks.co.uk/fulldetails.asp?ref=289151 "Mohammad Hosni the Calligrapher", City Talks, 24 June 2015, Retrieved 10 July 2015
  9. ↑ "Mohammad Hosni the Calligrapher", City Talks, 24 June 2015, Retrieved 10 July 2015
  10. ↑ Mayad Beloun. Profile, Alsharq Al Awsat (newspaper), (3 August 2001), No. 8284.
  11. ↑ Mayada Bailon, “سعاد حسني.. من بساتين الشام إلى سفوح الأهرام”, [Soad Hosny: From the Orchards of the Levant to the Foothills of the Pyramids], Jumada al-Alwwal, no. 8284, 3 August, 2001 <Online: https://archive.aawsat.com/details.asp?article=50669&issueno=8284#.YP4-feT3aaO%7C>
  12. ↑ Najat Al Saghira profile, najatalsaghira.wordpress.com. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
  13. ↑ [1], Al-Etihad [newspaper], UAE, "Obituary of Ezz- Eldin Hosni"
  14. ↑ Mohammad Qenawi, "Najat Al Saghira wins 'Al Owais' Prize", 4 December 2006, Issue No. 10233. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Ginsberg, T. and Lippard, C., Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema, Scarecrow Press, 2010, p. 181
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Lentz III, H.M., Obituaries in the Performing Arts, 2001: Film, television, Radio, Theatre, Dance, Music, Cartoons and Pop Culture McFarland, 2002, p. 146
  17. ↑ Ginsberg, T. and Lippard, C., Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema, Scarecrow Press, 2010, pp 181–182; It may be worth noting that this source repeats stories occasionally published in the Arabic media, that her father was cruel and denied her an education until age 16 years. Her brother, in a media interview, dismissed this and other rumours about his family life, promulgated by the Arabic media, stressing that he and his siblings were raised in a supportive and artistic household where their talents were nurtured. See: Al-Samahi, A., "Najat's small brother and Suad Hosni: I learned to survive singing", (Interview with composer, Ezzidin Hosny), Al-Ahram, (Arabic newspaper in Egypt), 6 December 2012, Issue No. 46021, Online: (translated from Arabic)
  18. ↑ Marks, L..U., Hanan Al-Cinema: Affections for the Moving Image, MIT Press, 2015, p. 185
  19. ↑ "Egyptians Mourn Screen Cinderella", BBC News, Online:
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Nassem Al-Kurd, “Soad Hosni: An Egyptian Cinderella of Kurdish Roots”, n.d.
  22. ↑ [http://www.abridgetoegypt.com/entertainment/egyptian_artists/abdelhalim_hafez “Abdel Halim Hafez’, A Bridge to Egypt, 17 August, 2011
  23. ↑ Allam, M., Vincere la Paura, Edizioni Mondadori, 2010, n.p
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Nassem Al-Kurd, “Soad Hosni: An Egyptian Cinderella of Kurdish Roots”, n.d.
  26. ↑ Ginsberg, T and Lippard, C., Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema Scarecrow Press, 2010, p. 182
  27. ↑ Soad Hosni funeral coverage, albayan.Ae, 29 June 2001.
  28. ↑ Al Arabiya (Arabic TV channel, Dubai); "Husbands of screen Cinderella ...". Retrieved 23 June 2011. Retrieved 10 July 2015.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  30. ↑ Harbord, J., Ex-centric Cinema: Giorgio Agamben and Film Archaeology, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 2016, p. 101
  31. ↑ Rowan El Shimi, "Cinderella story of Egyptian cinema told through film on Soad Hosny", ahram.org.eg, 25 September 2013.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Russell, C., Archiveology: Walter Benjamin and Archival Film Practices, Duke University Press, 2018 [E-book edition], n.p.

Sources

  • Terri Ginsberg, Chris Lippard, 2010: Historical Dictionary of Middle Eastern Cinema, Scarecrow Press.
  • Ashraf Gharib, 2001: Soad Hosni: Al-Hulm Al-Dai (Soad Hosni: The Lost Dream). (Cf. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.)
  • Mohamed Soweid, 2004: Cabaret Suad, Beirut: Dar al-Adab. (Cf. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.)

External links

Articles and essays

Media portrayals

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