Magda

Brief Biography

• Name: Magda (born ِAfaf Ali El-Sabahi)
• Date of birth: 6 May 1931
• Place of birth: Tanta, Egypt
• Date of death: 16 January 2020
• Profession: Egyptian actress and producer
• Years active: from 1949 to 1994
• Standing: an Egyptian actress and producer who appeared in sixty-nine films and was among the first Egyptian actresses to found a production company

Early Life and Beginnings

• She belonged to a prominently landed family; her paternal grandfather, Abdel Rahman Pasha El-Sabbahi, served on the Shura Council under Khedive Ismail.
• Her family originated from Shebin El-Kom, where she spent parts of her childhood, and she attended boarding school before moving to Cairo in 1949.
• She began acting at age fifteen without her family's knowledge.

Career

• Her film debut was in «The Intelligent» in 1949, and in 1956 she founded her own production company, becoming one of the first Egyptian actresses to do so.
• She appeared in sixty-nine films, establishing herself first in romantic and comic roles before moving into political and dramatic parts.
• She played the lead in Youssef Chahine's «Jamila, the Algerian» in 1958, about Djamila Bouhired; the film was listed among the top 100 Egyptian films and became a landmark of pan-Arab nationalist cinema.
• She appeared in «The Man Who Lost His Shadow» in 1968, based on Fathy Ghanem's novel, and continued acting irregularly until 1994.

Selected Works

• Miss Hanafi (1954)
• Allah Is With Us (1955)
• Jamila, the Algerian (1958)
• Teenagers (1961)
• The Naked Truth (1963)
• The Man Who Lost His Shadow (1968)
• The Caller (1975)

Artistic Style

• She moved from romantic and comic roles into political and dramatic parts with national and social dimensions.

Awards and Recognition

• She received the Nile Award, Egypt's highest state honor for the arts.
• She was elected president of the Egyptian Women in Film Association in 1995.

Personal Life

• She married intelligence officer and actor Ihab Nafe in 1963, and had her daughter Ghada in 1965.