Samia Gamal 1953 (Nashala Hanem)

Samia Gamal was born on May 27th 1924 as Zeinab Khalil Ibrahim Mafouz in the village of Wana el Kess, Her father was a tailor and her mother was Moroccan. When she was eight years old her mother died and her father remarried.The new wife was very cruel to her and would often beat her and treated her like a servant. When Samia was thirteen her father died too, and she found that she was no longer welcome in her stepmother's home so she went to live with her sister and brother in law in Cairo. Her sister's husband earned a very poor salary so Samia learned to sew to help supplement the family income. She helped her sister with the household chores and took care of her nephew.
Samia's bedroom overlooked a neighborhood cafe, where the radio was always playing. She would listen to it from her bedroom and she heard for the first time the voice of a new singer named Farid El Atrash.
At age 14 she found work at a cloth printing factory and after that she worked in a hospital as a nurse.
One of their neighbors was a woman who loved to go to the movies. One day she took Samia with her to see the film Malaket el Masara7 (which Badia Masabni was in) and Samia's fascination with dance began. She dreamed of being a dancer at Badia's club where other dancers such as Hekmet Fahmy, Beba Ezz el Din, Houriya Mohamed and Gamalat Hassan were famous. One day when she was 15 she got home late from the cinema and her sister's husband beat her, so she ran away to a neighbor's house.
Her dream of being a dancer came true one day when she was sitting at El Gamal Cafeteria and the son of the owner, Moustafa Gamal, overheard her saying how much she'd love to meet Badia Masabni and become a famous dancer. So Moustafa Gamal told her that he could introduce her to Badia. He arranged a meeting between them. Samia took the last name Gamal in gratitude to Moustafa Gamal, of El Gamal Cafeteria who introduced her to Badia. And Badia selected the name Samia for her.
Badia hired her for a salary of 6 pounds a month. However, on the day of her debut as a solo dancer she was nervous and she froze. Her dance number was a complete flop and the audience boo'd and hissed. Badia was not impressed and put her back in the chorus line as a background dancer. From that moment on Samia decided that she would become a great dancer. She firmly believed that dance was like a science that must be learned and that it wasn't just about shaking the waist and the belly. She asked Lebanese choreographer and dance instructor Isaac Dickson to work with her and train her. He trained her for two dance numbers, one to the spanish song Fire Dance, and another to Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody. Samia also attended dance school were she learned Samba, Rumba, Tango and Rock & Roll. She also took ballet classes from a foreign ballet instructor named Sonia Ivanova. Samia wanted to find just the right costume to catch Badia's eye so that Ms.Masabni would allow her to dance as a solo dancer again.Taheya Carioca presented her with a beautiful costume as a gift. Soon after, she was reinstated as a solo performer and became well known for her fire dance which she danced surrounded by flames with a tambourine in her hand wearing a fiery red dance costume. Badia then doubled her salary. Samia
then went to dance at a casino in Suez City where they paid her 20 pounds per month. Upon her return to Cairo she worked as a dancer at the Kit Kat Club and at the El Dollez club where she earned the nickname "The Barefoot Dancer" after one of her shoestraps broke making it impossible to continue dancing. so she took off her shoes and finished the dance barefoot. Her salary was now up to 40 pounds per month.
Her first film roles were as an extra. In 1943 she was given the lead role in the film Min Fat Ademoh Tah, which flopped at the box office and she went back to working as an extra in several films until Mohamed Abdul Wahab
gave her a dancing part in his film El Hob El Awal. She danced to one of his compositions and was a huge success. She signed a contract to make two films, El Bani Adam and Taxi Hantour. Later, Farid El Atrash chose her to star in a film he was producing called Habibi El 3Omr. They were very successful as an onscreen pair and went on to make several more movies together. She made about 50 films in her lifetime. Samia Gamal married twice. She lived in Houston during her marriage to American Shep King. During that time she danced in 15 states in a period of 16 months and earned approximately 10 thousand pounds, which were seized by her husband. The marriage ended in divorce and she returned to Egypt. In 1962 she married actor Rushdie Abaza and remained married to him til his death in 1982. (though there are conflicting versions that they divorced before his death)
Samia Gamal died on December 1, 1994 at Misr International Hospital after a six day coma. She was 70.
Source: http://www.dahsha.com/viewarticle.php?id=26401

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Samia
• Gamal
• Bellydance
• Belly
• dancer
• Egypt
• Egyptian
• Raqs
• sharqi
• golden
• era

[missdoroti]

I'm in love with this music!<3

[raksabijah]

For me, the costuming was never more elegant than in this Golden Age era. Class, grace, elegance, the beauty of the female body in motion......

[liviapj]

Gorgeous epic scene!