{"id":4140,"date":"2022-09-22T08:32:10","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T08:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/part-lebanese-superstar-shakira-opens-up-about-gerard-pique-split\/"},"modified":"2022-09-22T08:32:10","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T08:32:10","slug":"part-lebanese-superstar-shakira-opens-up-about-gerard-pique-split","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gulftimes.ae\/?p=4140","title":{"rendered":"Part-Lebanese superstar Shakira opens up about Gerard Piqu\u00e9 split\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/p>\n
\n
\nDUBAI: Even 22 years on from her untimely passing, few stars in the history of Arab cinema captivate the cultural imagination quite like Soad Hosny. The singer and actress known as \u201cThe Cinderella of Egyptian cinema\u201d was a key part of the rise of her country\u2019s movie culture, starring in a number of the most popular Arab films of the Sixties and Seventies, working with greats including Omar Sharif and director Youssef Chahine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nBut Hosny\u2019s enduring popularity is due to something more than just her talent. As brilliant as she was an artist, it was her bewitching personality \u2014 both familiar and always out of reach \u2014 that even those who knew her are still attempting to figure out to this day.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\nSoad Hosny with Hussein Fahmy in 1972\u2019s \u2018Watch Out for ZouZou.\u2019 (Supplied)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n\u201cIt was like she was split into two different personalities, and you could always see both on her face\u201d famed Egyptian designer Karim Mekhtigian \u2014 who knew Hosny from his early childhood, being the nephew of her close friend and frequent collaborator, producer Takfour Antonian \u2014 tells Arab News.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cEither in life or in film, Soad\u2019s face could convey opposing feelings simultaneously. It was genuinely remarkable. One eye (could be) full of sadness, the other radiating happiness. She was never one thing. That\u2019s part of what made her talent so remarkable,\u201d he continues.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\nSoad Hosny holding Karim Mekhatagian as a baby. (Courtesy of Karim Mekhatagian)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\nFor Hosny herself, the fact that she took such varying roles over the decades in which she dominated Egyptian cinema while also topping its music charts was simply because she could not force herself to stay in any one mode for too long, growing restless if she felt stagnant creatively.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cBy nature, I am bored,\u201d Hosny said in an Egyptian television interview in 1984. \u201cI do not wish to repeat the same thing. I can make political films; I can make entertaining films. Every film will present something new. I can play the naughty girl or the innocent wife. I am always looking to play different personalities. Each character I play has an atmosphere I can present. I want to play women in all their many facets.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nLike many of her contemporaries, part of what made Hosny so suited to the career she chose was the fact that she grew up in an intensely artistic household, led by her father, the famed Islamic calligrapher Mohammad Hosny \u2014 a Kurdish artist who had settled in Egypt at the age of 19.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\nSoad Hosny receives an honor from then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in the 1970s. (Alamy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\nYoung Soad, the daughter of her father\u2019s second wife, grew up among 16 siblings and half-siblings, with numerous luminaries of the Arab world\u2019s artistic community shuffling in and out of their home. Each of the children were affected by those interactions in different ways. Her sister Nagat, for example, also became an actress and singer, while her half-brother Ezz composed music for decades. Others played instruments or pursued fine arts, but none reached the heights of their sister Soad.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nWhile that environment was far from a formal means of preparation for a life in the arts, it was, ultimately, all that Hosny needed.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI came into film unadulterated,\u201d she said in an interview with Qatar TV in 1972, shortly after her career defining hit \u201cWatch Out for ZouZou,\u201d Hassan El-Imam\u2019s classic film about a student who falls in love with her professor. \u201cI did not enter an institute, or anything like that. I never took a lesson.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nHosny entered the film world early. Her debut, \u201cHassan and Nayima\u201d (1959) began shooting when she was just 15. Throughout the Sixties, Hosny starred in hit after hit opposite top stars Omar Sharif, Salah Zulfikar and Rushdy Abaza, among others, finally collaborating with Egypt\u2019s top director Youssef Chahine in 1970 with \u201cThe Choice,\u201d by which time she had developed from a key collaborator with the film world\u2019s biggest stars to the main draw in her own right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\u201cEvery film I have worked on gave me more education; every experience has taught me lessons. \u2018ZouZou,\u2019 for example, was a huge success and people loved it, and if I am to continue on from that success, I don\u2019t need to take lessons in schools to do that,\u201d Hosny told Qatar TV in that same interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nAs the years went on, Hosny pushed for roles that would help define not only who Egyptian women were, but who they could be \u2014 pushing boundaries with overtly political films as well as biting satire that deliberately gave voice to the voiceless in Egyptian society, a move that made her a thought leader as well as a beloved cultural figure.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\u201cI love playing the modern girl of Egypt, and expressing her problems, the environment in which she lives, and her psyche. I want to play her hopes, her ambitions, her ideas, and dreams. I want to explore what it means for us to love Egypt, and express all that that means,\u201d she said in 1972.<\/p>\n
\nHosny was a symbol of Egyptian femininity for many, something that current Egyptian superstar Mona Zaki struggled to embody when playing her in the 2006 TV series about Hosny\u2019s life, \u201cCinderella,\u201d written by acclaimed Egyptian screenwriter Tamer Habib.<\/p>\n\n\n\u00a0Mona Zaki (centre) as Soad Hosny in 2006\u2019s \u2018Cinderella.\u2019 (AFP)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n\u201cSoad Hosny was so feminine both in appearance and substance, while I\u2019m a tomboy. I could play Hosny\u2019s character only after much searching. I built a new relationship with my femininity after this series,\u201d Zaki told Vogue in 2021.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\u201cLong before I wrote the series, I had always been fascinated by her. She was always my dream collaborator\u2014no one could compare to Soad Hosny,\u201d Habib tells Arab News.<\/p>\n
\nHosny\u2019s peak lasted for more than two decades. But by the late Eighties she was struggling with illness, ultimately retiring from acting in 1991 at just 48.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nThough she stepped away from the screen, Hosny never left the public eye. When she died in June 2001, tragically falling from the balcony of her friend Nadia Yousri\u2019s apartment in London, England, it confounded and saddened all of Egypt, with her funeral attracting 10,000 mourners. Theories as to the exact circumstances of her death still circulate today.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nDespite the enduring love Hosny has inspired over the 63 years since she first debuted on the screen, those closest to her still feel that she is misunderstood and underappreciated.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\u201cSoad was incredibly talented. She had the ability to perfectly play any role whether it is comedic or tragic. She had charisma and charm. Yet, she was unappreciated and died alone,” actor and friend Hassan Youssef told Egypt Today in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\nWhile the mere fact that interest has never faded from her life or work seems to disprove his blanket statement that Hosny was unappreciated, there is perhaps a kernel of truth in his words. After all, is it even possible to fully appreciate the nuances and variety of a life and career such as Soad Hosny\u2019s?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/sites\/default\/files\/userimages\/3915446\/3_-_soad_hosny_holding_karim_mekhatagian_as_a_baby_-_courtesy_of_karim_mekhatagian.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/sites\/default\/files\/userimages\/3915446\/4_-_soad_hosny_receives_an_honor_from_then_egyptian_president_anwar_sadat_in_the_1970s_-_credit_alamy.jpg\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.arabnews.com\/sites\/default\/files\/userimages\/3915446\/balcony_image_-_head_shoulders_of_mona_zaki_c_as_soad_hosni_in_2006s_cinderella_-_afp.jpg\")