Biographies: Farid Shawqy - Actor

Biographies

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Fareed Shawky is one of the most famous Egyptian and Arab world actors. Born Fareed Shawky Muhammad Abdou in 1922 in the popular quarter of al-Sayyeda Zainab – Cairo. After receiving the Applied Arts diploma, Fareed joined the High Institute of Dramatic Arts. Meanwhile he started acting small roles with Anwar Wagdy. He later wrote his own films and became a super star. Of his famous titles are; “Malek al-Terso i.e. The King of the Third Class”, “Wahsh alShaashah i.e. Beast of the Silver Screen” and “Al-malek i.e. The king”. For the first decade he played the villain, yet ended up playing more human touching roles. His action films attracted great audience of simple people. He won the State award in 1955 “Gaalouny Mogremann i.e. They made me criminal”, in 1956, his film “Al fotowwa i.e. The bully” was nominated for Berlin Film Festival's Golden Bear . In 1962, he received the state Production Award and in 1994 he was honored by the Cairo International Film festival. His films “Hakatha al-ayyaam i.e. So are the days” and “La tabky ya habeeb al-omr i.e. Don’t cry sweet heart”, won several prizes. On stage, with Naguib el Reehany Troup he played the lead role in “Al-dallouaa i.e The spoilt”, “Hekaayet koll yowm i.e. The everyday story” and many other plays. Fareed also starred in a number of Lebanese, Syrian and Turkish films. Shawky married Hoda Sultan his acting partner who gave him two daughters. After their divorce, he got married to Soheir Tork who also gave him two daughters.

• 4 May 2011
• Achraf Wassim