Hind Rostom

Hind Rostom (1965)

Hind Rostom ( Arabic هند رستم; * November 11, 1929 , according to other sources in 1931 or 1933, as Nariman Hussein Murad , in Alexandria ; † August 8, 2011 in Giza ) was an Egyptian film actress .

Life

Rostom was born as Nariman Hussein Murad in Alexandria. Her father came from the Egyptian- Turkish middle class, her mother from an old but impoverished Egyptian family. Her parents separated shortly after she was born. Her mother remarried and Rostom lived temporarily with her mother and stepfather in Alexandria. Rostom ran away from home at the age of nine, moved to her father's house in Cairo and lived in the household of her father and his second wife, whom Rostom did not want in the household. So she spent most of her youth in Egyptian boarding schools. She later lived with her single mother, who was divorced for the second time, in a poor district of Cairo. From an early age she had the desire to become an actress. Her idols were the American film actress Rita Hayworth and the Egyptian belly dancer Tahiya Karioka .

Between 1947 and 1954 she starred as Statistin and Komparsin in over twenty films, including 1949 in Ghazal El Banat ( غزل البنات ) of Anwar Wagdi and 1950 in the directorial debut of Youssef Chahine , Baba Amin (بابا أمين, DMG Bābā Amīn ). She had her first speaking role in 1954 in the comedy El sittat maarfoush yiktibu directed by Mohamed Abdel Gawad .

Her breakthrough as a film actress came with the role in the melodrama El Gassad by Hassan al-Imam (1919–1988). In this film, she embodied for the first time the type of role to which she remained mainly true in the course of her further career: the attractive, ambitious seductress who uses her sexuality , her erotic charisma, wit and intelligence to achieve her goals. Rostom created a new type of female role characters in Egyptian cinema; the female archetype of early Egyptian cinema has been replaced by the self-determined woman who stands by her feelings. Because of her lascivious beauty and her erotic roles, she was referred to as the "Queen of Seduction" or " Marilyn Monroe of the Orient".

She later starred in two other highly controversial films directed by Hassan al-Iman, in the drama Shafiqa, the Koptin ( Chafika el Keptia ) (1963) and in the drama Al Rahiba (1965). In both films, Rostom played a Christian with an insatiable lust for life, who paid for her non-conformist demeanor with social isolation.

In the late 1950s, Rostom appeared in two films by Salah Abu Seif , a pioneer of neorealism in Egyptian cinema. In the melodrama El Anam (1957) she played the role of Kawthar, the friend of the female lead, alongside Faten Hamama , Omar Sharif and Yehia Chahine . In 1959 she starred in Abu Seif's film Bayn el samaa wa el ard , a black comedy about a group of passengers getting stuck in an elevator .

A high point of her career was in 1958 her leading role in the classic film Tatort… Cairo Central Station (باب الحديد, DMG Bāb al-ḥadīd ) by Youssef Chahine. She played the wild, uncontrolled and indomitable lemonade seller Hanuma, who drives the newspaper seller Qinawi, played by Chahine, into a maddening madness. With this role Rostom was also seen in German cinemas.

During her career, Rostom starred in over 70 films in almost every film genre: in comedies , melodramas, action films, and biographies . From the mid-1960s, Rostom also took on quieter, more sedate female roles, such as her role as Mokhtar in the film drama El Khouroug min el guana (1967) by Mahmoud Zulfikar . She embodied the patient and helping wife of a frivolous, unemployed singer.

In 1979 Rostom ended her career as a film actress. She then largely withdrew from the public. In December 2002 she turned down the offer to write her biography; the offer was made to her by an Egyptian satellite that was planning a television series about her life. Rostom refuses on the grounds that she has withdrawn from the public eye and that her private life is only her concern; she will also not sell her life story for media purposes for money. It wasn't until 2011 that she appeared again with an interview on the television show Egypt Today . In it she also spoke about her conscious decision to “end her film career at her early forties” in order to devote herself to her role as a housewife and mother .

Private

Rostom was married twice. Her first marriage was to the film director Hassan Reda ; from this marriage a daughter was born. In his second marriage, Rostom married the doctor Mohammed Fayad. Rostom died in the evening of August 8, 2011 at the El Borg Medical Hospital in the district of Mohandessin in Giza ; she had received intensive care there after a heart attack . The funeral ceremony for Rostom took place on August 9, 2011 in the Sayyida Zainab Mosque in Cairo .

Filmography (selection)

• 1949: Ghazal El Banat ( غزل البنات )
• 1950: Baba Amin (بابا أمين, DMG Bābā Amīn )
• 1954: El sittat maarfoush yiktibu
• 1955: El Gassad
• 1955: Banat el lail
• 1957: Inta habibi
• 1957: Ibn Hamidu
• 1957: The crime scene ... Cairo Central Station (باب الحديد, DMG Bāb al-ḥadīd )
• 1958: La Anam
• 1958: Ismail Yasseen fi mostashfet al-maganin
• 1959: Seraa fil Nil
• 1960: Bayn el samaa wa el ard
• 1963: Shafiqa, the Koptin ( Chafika el Keptia )
• 1965: El Rahiba
• 1967: El Khouroug min el guana
• 1971: Madrasatee al-hisnaa
• 1972: Wakr al-ashrar

Web links

• Hind Rostom in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In the obituaries of Hind Rostom, different years of birth were mentioned. In almost all obituaries it was reported unanimously that Rostom died at the age of 82. The probable year of birth should therefore be 1929. The Internet Movie Database previously stated the year of birth 1933, but has now corrected this to 1929. 1933 is also mentioned as a possible year of birth on the Belly Dance Museum website and in a French obituary by the Chafona web radio , La célèbre actrice Hind Rostom est décédée .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e} ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Legendary Egyptian actress dies at 82. ) Obituary in: Egyptian Gazette , August 10, 2011.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} Egyptian screen legend, seductress Hind Rostom dies at 82 ( Memento from March 26, 2012 in the Internet Archive ). Obituary, Daily News Egypt . August 9, 2011.
4. ↑ Belly Dance Museum : Hind Rostom. Biography. (engl.)
5. ↑ La célèbre actrice Hind Rostom est décédée. Obituary web radio Chafona , accessed on August 24, 2011.
6. ↑ ^{a b c d} Legendary Egyptian Actress Dies ( Memento from August 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Al Arabiya News , August 10, 2011 (with film excerpts).
7. ^ Egyptian cinema sensation dies of heart attack at 82 , Gulf News , August 10, 2011.
8. ^ Funeral of Egypt's legendary actress Hind Rustom takes place today , Al-Ahram , August 9, 2011.