Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Nadia Lotfy: My Name is Paula


Sat 16 Jan 2021 | 05:04 PM
Ahmed Emam

The diaries of the late actor Nadia Lotfy— best known for playing “Ahlam" in the  “ Seven Girles, 1961” movie— has  been published as a book in early 2021.

As reported by youm 7 newspaper, Ayman Al-Hakim, an Egyptian writer, covered everything from Lotfy's thoughts on acting to insights on friendships and childhood.

In Esmi Paula: Nadia Lotfy Tahki (My name is Paula: Nadia Lotfy Recunts) book the late actress, who died in February 2020, simply recounts and narrates her life journey starting from the moment of her birth at the Italian Hospital in Cairo on 3 January 1937, a cold winter night following New Year celebration that left decorations still hanging in the streets.

According to the first chapter of My name is Paula book, Lotfy mentions that her delivery was not easy. While her mother was in agonizing labour. Her father waited despondent outside.

At that moment a nurse came and spoke to Lotfy, helping her maintain a positive attitude. The name of that nurse, Paula, became the new-born’s name even though it was both Christian and foreign which may have presented the Upper Egyptian Muslim father, Mohamed shafiq, with a problem. The book includes photos of Paula as a child alone and with her family.

Lotfy joined the German school in Cairo, where in addition to other languages she learned Polish. This enabled her to escort a polish actors' delegation in Cairo, something for which she became a celebrity for some time.

The photos of her published in Egyptian magazines and newspapers drew attention to her beauty, and they were the source of the rumours, incidentally, to the day she died. 

Her favourite and ideal names on the other hand were  Laila and Nadia; she was inspired by the heroine of Ihsan Abdel-Quddous's novel la Anam (Sleepless), Nadia lotfy, especially when producer-director Ramses Nagiub offered her a lead in his film Sultan. She had to defy her father’s refusal that she should become an actress. He was an open minded man but this was too much for him.

When Naguib suggested that she should pick a stage name that was both Arab and simpler than Paula Shafiq, it was an easy choice.

In the second chapter of Lofty's memoirs, named “ the Intellectuals and I”, she recalls her childhood friend Enayat Al-Zaiat, who's suicide left her alone in pain.

Ultimately, she mentions her alongside such famous writers as, Youssif Idris, Tawfiq Al-Hakim, Anis Mansour, Yehia Al-Taher and Abdel-Rahman Al-Abnoudy.