Supervisor Elham AbolFateh
Editor in Chief Mohamed Wadie

Omar Sharif, Rami Malek, Mena Massoud Added Honor to Egypt Globally


Wed 04 Sep 2019 | 12:22 PM
opinion .

By: Dr. Zahi Hawass

Omar Sharif lived as a world star in Hollywood. He presented us with the three most important films in his film career, and I mean in America, the most important of them: "Lawrence of Arabia", “Doctor Zhivago” and "Funny Girl."

Sharif received three Golden Globe and 1 Cesar awards. He had extraordinary charisma and was fluent in five languages, and nevertheless received an Oscar.

The young Rami Malek became the talk of Hollywood stars and directors after he received the Oscar Award at an age of not more than 38 years.

He is the son of an Egyptian mother and father from Upper Egypt who immigrated to America. The father was a tour guide. He has a twin brother named Sami and a sister. Malek has worked as an actor since 2004. He received 14 awards, the most important being the Emmy Award, a television award he got in 2006. He also received the Golden Globe, and finally the Oscar, which made him globally known.

Malek became one of Hollywood`s most important actors. He received the Oscar award for acting as singer Freddie Mercury and dedicated it to his father and his beloved.

I was invited to a film festival in Italy. It is the second most important film festival after Vienna. The festival official told me that Rami Malek had been invited to the festival, and was excited to attend, after which he did not attend because he would play the villain in a James Bond film. After that, he found that this role would be an abuse of Egypt, and he apologized. I think he refused to play the second role.

I knew he spoke Arabic in simple words, unlike the Egyptian-Canadian artist who quickly climbed the rocket into the Hollywood world, Mena Massoud, who acted Aladdin role in the last film with Will Smith.

Massoud was born in Cairo, so he speaks fluent Arabic. He was born in 1991 and now lives in Toronto, Canada. His role in Aladdin has brilliantly played and made everyone adore his songs and performance, but this role cannot give him a Hollywood award even though I think there is a new actor born in Hollywood.

The last story is that Dina Anas Habib, known in the political world as Dina Powell. She played a new important role in the Bush administration. Later, she moved to Goldman Sachs, one of America's most important financial companies, and Powell is the company's third most important person.

Powell was about five years old when she traveled to Dallas at the time of King Ramses II's exhibition, where I met her father Anas Habib. He became one of my most important friends. Dina returned to work with Donald Trump, especially because she is a friend of Trump's daughter, and suddenly resigned and even rejected the post of US ambassador to the United Nations.

She is very impressed with the story written in Arabic and English by the Egyptian Jew, Lucette Lagnado "The Man in the White Sharkskin Suit.” She tells the story of her Jewish family and how she left Egypt after the end of King Farouk `s rule and the revolution.

Powell wants to produce this story in English as Ramy Malek will play the role. The story was given in Arabic to my friend, the creator Waheed Hamid to write the script. He has apologized for writing the script. When I asked him why he refused, he said: “the story was great, but if I wrote the script, all the Egyptian people would sympathize with the Jewish family.”

I think the reason Sharif did not get the Oscars was the presence of the acting giants of his time, but now no actor is competing for the Oscars, although Rami Malek excelled in portraying the role of singer Freddie Mercury.

Omar Sharif, Rami Malek, and Mena Massoud have raised the name of Egypt everywhere in the world.

Contributed by Ahmad El-Assasy