Today marks the birth anniversary of legendary actress Shadia. Born in 1931 in Egypt, Shadia was often regarded as the first female superstar of the Egyptian film industry. The actress started her career at the age of 14.
In a career spanning 40 years, Shadia featured in over 110 films, 11 TV series, and 1 play. The late actress was one of the most inspiring stars of Egypt's showbiz. Many actresses model themselves like her even today.
Apart from her acting prowess, she also carved a name for herself as one of the most talented female singers.
She holds several records as a singer with her countable songs in Arabic; she was the first receptionist of the honorary doctorate of the Egyptian Academy of Arts. Moreover, she bagged the Cairo Festival Awards several times. The remarkable star had also recorded many songs in a short time and was a favorite for many composers.
The iconic director Mohamed Abdel-Gawad at the end of 1946 and the beginning of 1947 was looking for a new face with Egyptian and European features to play the leading role in, (Flowers and Thorns), produced by Studio Misr.
Consequently, Abdel-Gawad chose Shadia, who was known for her resemblance with American Audrey Hepburn, the biggest Hollywood female superstar, to sing in both Flowers and Thorns and The Tramp, replacing another star, Hekmat Fahmy, a famous bellydancer at the time.
After that, the actress became one of the Egyptian and Arab world’s top female stars for much of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s in the heydays of Egyptian cinema.
The stunning star appeared in many romantic hit films, such as (We Loved Each Other), (The Sun Has Glowed), (One Two), Ya Deblet El-Khutuba (The Engagement Ring), and Maksoufa (I Am Shy), Ahbek Wa Adahi fi Hobbek (I Love You and Sacrifice in My Loving You) and Meen Qallek Tuskun fi Haratna (Who Told You to Live in Our Neighbourhood).
Shadia married three times. Her first husband was actor Emad Hamdi. She then married engineer Aziz Fathi later in the 1950s, and they separated in the 1960s. After a while, the remarkable actress married actor Salah Zulfikar in 1964, and they divorced in 1969.
She made over 117 films in the mere thirty years of her stardom before she retired in 1984, aged 50.
Shadia retired from acting after her last play – Raya & Skina in which she played Raya – was released in 1982.
In 2017, Shadia breathed her last at Cairo's Galaa Military Hospital at the age of 86 after a long struggle with illness and after suffering a recent stroke.
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