Ferit Şevki

Ferit Şevki — Biography

Born Farid Shawqi Mohammad Abdou Shawqi on 30 July 1920 in Cairo's El Sayyeda Zainab quarter, he spent his first decade on screen typecast as a villain. His own 1954 script Ga'aloony Mujriman, which tackled homeless children and juvenile crime, won a state prize and transformed his image into that of a defender of the underdog. Poor audiences who filled the cinema's cheapest seats gave him the nickname "Malek El Terso," his gallery of heroic roles earned him "Monster of the Arab Screen," and having five daughters brought him the name "Abu el-Banat."

Across a career of nearly fifty years he appeared in, wrote or produced close to four hundred films and won ten best actor awards. He also worked in Turkish cinema during the 1960s and 1970s; his role in Cemile brought him the Best Supporting Actor award at the 1969 Golden Orange Film Festival.

He married four times: his eighteen-year marriage to actress Huda Sultan produced daughters Nahed, later a film producer, and Maha, while his final wife, Soheir Tork, was the mother of actress Rania and director Abir. He died in Cairo's Maadi district on 27 July 1998.