Remembering Adel Adham, Egypt's Cinema’s Favourite Villain

Today, Egyptian and Arab cinema is commemorating the 36th death anniversary of legendary Adel Adham — best known for playing "Aziz" in 'Hafia Ala Gesr Al'Zahab', 1976, movie.

Villain on-screen, hero off it — that was Adham, who made over 50 Arab films, and a western film too, according to critics.

The legendary actor was endowed with a special style of performing the villain and bad guy roles that distinguished him from those who made such roles their specialty to the extent that he became the founder of an acting technique emulated by others.

Adham, who was called “The Prince,” was born in Alexandria on 8 March 1928 to a father who was a government employee and a mother of Turkish origin.

Being fluent in multiple languages helped him in getting along with members of foreign communities, who were widespread in the coastal city, especially after he began to work in business when he was 17.

While strolling on an Alexandrian beach, he was spotted by the renowned director Abdel-Fattah Hassan during the shooting of a film and offered him an acting job.

Immediately, Adham accepted the offer and appeared in several movies taking small parts, starting in 1949 and including ‘Gawaher’ (Mohamed Abdel-Gawad) and The Big House (Ahmed Kamel Morsi).

The Egyptian handsome young man was waiting for the opportunities Hassan had promised him to materialize. Unfortunately, the director died before presenting his new discovery to the cinema.

In the same context, Adham went to the veteran actor and director Anwar Wagdi who was curt, stressing that he wasn’t suitable for acting except in front of a mirror.

The young man, who was an athlete, decided to move into dancing through his lifetime friend Ali Reda, co-founder of the Reda Folkloric Dancing Troupe, at the same time as working in the Cotton Stock Exchange in Alexandria.

Meanwhile, he continued to do both jobs until Egypt nationalized the cotton trade and closed the Cotton Stock Exchange at the end of the 1950s.

At this moment, Adham decided to immigrate to Europe, but another great coincidence changed his life completely.

Incidentally, he met director Ahmed Diaa-Eldin, who was about to shoot A Queer Girl and Am I Mad? (both 1964), and decided to cast Adham in the two films since he believed in his talent.

Thereafter, Adham went on to act in many films and television shows until he died in 1996.

Throughout his career, the actor won several accolades, including the General Authority for Cinema Award the Egyptian Association for Film Writers and Critics Award.