18 Facts About Farid Shawqi

Farid Shawqi Mohammad Abdou Shawqi ; known as Farid Shawqi was an Egyptian actor, screenwriter and film producer.

Farid Shawqi acted in 351 films, 27 plays and 17 television series; wrote 25 film scripts and produced 30 films.

Farid Shawqi is considered to be one of the greatest actors in the Middle East.

The closet title to Farid Shawqi's heart was "The King"; he was named this after his movie "Night's Devils" that was released in 1966, directed by Niazi Mostafa.

Farid Shawqi was known as "The king" among his colleagues.

Farid Shawqi's popularity covered the whole of the Arab World and the Middle East, including Turkey where he acted in some films there, and directors always addressed his as ' Farid Bay' as a sign of respect.

Screenwriter Abd-el-Hay Adeeb once had to rewrite a scene in a film after it had been released: Farid Shawqi's character was slapped on the back of the neck, which is a sign of contempt in southern Mediterranean countries; the cinema audience in the city of Assiut rioted in protest, destroying the building.

Audiences called for the "Beast" - Farid Shawqi - to come to his rescue, despite the fact that Farid Shawqi did not appear in that film.

Farid Shawqi was born in July 1920 in El Baghghala neighborhood of Cairo's popular quarter of Al-Sayyedah Zynab, where the majority of residents were the terso- film goers when Egyptian cinema started turning into a big industry.

Farid Shawqi worked as a civil servant as the Second World War broke out.

Farid Shawqi was given small parts in Ramsis Theatre group headed by Youssef Bay Wahby, then he worked with Anwar Wagdy doing small parts on the silver screen.

Farid Shawqi formed a local theatre group `The National League of Acting' which included his young wife actress Zainab Abd-el-Hady whom he married in 1941, they had one daughter Mona.

The group specialized in presenting Chekov's plays, and Farid Shawqi excelled in playing the leading parts and before, he played plenty of villain roles such as his role in Ana al-Madi of Ezz El-Dine Zulficar - later on he loved to play classic parts in screenplays of novels by Nobel Prize holder Naguib Mahfouz.

Farid Shawqi was working on a script for his daughter Abir in film dealing with homeless young people just before he died.

Farid Shawqi married Huda Sultan and had two daughters with her; one of them, Nahed Farid Shawqi, is a movie producer.

Farid Shawqi was survived by wife Soheir Turk and five daughters Mona, Nahed, Maha, Abeer and Rania.

Farid Shawqi's brother was the late General Staff of Egyptian police Ahmad Shawqi.

Farid Shawqi's other daughter from Soheir, Abir, is a film director with two children as well.