BORN IN THE Cleopatra El-Mahata neighborhood of Alexandria, Yehia Mohamed was an only child who was raised by his mother after his father took off and abandoned them. After dropping out of school in the sixth grade, Yehia found work, supporting himself and his mother throughout the 1960s. Earning very little, he sometimes worked as a plumber, electrician or a mechanic. “I even worked as a diver in Alex for a while when I was 19 years old, for two or three years. It appealed to me at the time because we would often go on rescue missions to save drowning people. It was very hard, but I like to help people when I can,” he says.

Fascinated by the starry glitz of cinema, Yehia “Yaya” Mohamed who is now famous as one of Hollywood’s most endearing celebrity hounds secured a role for himself on an Adel Imam film set. “I just went to Studio Al-Ahram and convinced them. It was such a long time ago, I don’t remember the name of the film, but I was the one sitting in the carpenter’s workshop in jail,” he recalls. It was around that time that he started taking a keen interest in photography. Unable to afford a camera, he used to rent one from a photo store for a pound a day. Quickly mastering its use, he practiced on friends and his teammates from the Alexandria wrestling club.

This picture [with Clinton] really created a stir when I took it back to Alex. A friend of mine accused me of manipulating my images. I was really upset because I couldn’t prove otherwise to him.

In the early 1970s, Yaya landed a job as a maintenance mechanic in Sherket El-Warak El-Ahlia (The National Paper Company). Saving some money, he set off for umrah (the lesser pilgrimage) in Mecca. A chance meeting with Remon Saad, a wealthy businessman who was on the verge of opening the biggest theme park in Jeddah, resulted in an unexpected detour. Saad took Yaya under his wing, finalized his residency papers, gave him a job as senior mechanic and took him to Rome to buy installed rides at a fair, which he would later reassemble and install himself. “Celebrity sightings are quite scarce in Saudi. The only one I saw was Alain Delon, who came for a fleeting visit. Unfortunately it had to be cut short because the women were going mad fawning around him and the mutawe’ien [religious police] would have none of it; it got very ugly,” he laughs.

Impressing European consultants and project managers with the quality of his work, things were looking up for Yaya and he was finally able to buy his own camera, a Nikon. Over the summer holidays, Yaya regularly returned to Alex to visit his mother and friends. It was during one of these visits that he got the chance to shoot his first celebrity photo when Alexandrian-born singer Démis Roussos at the peak of his international career was visiting his hometown to perform several live concerts. Using his powers of persuasion, he managed to get backstage and snap the shot of them together.

Sniffing out celebs every summer vacation, his collection grew to include Dalida, Tom Jones and Egyptian stars like Adel Imam and Omar Hariry, who were snapped while showing their classic stage play Shahed Mashafsh Haga (The Witness Who Saw Nothing). “I went down to Cairo and saw Marlon Brando, but he was surrounded by a wall of bodyguards and I couldn’t get through. He was always a private man, one of the hardest to approach,” he says

Meanwhile, Yaya’s work with millionaire Saad was taking him places he could only have dreamed of visiting, including Nice, Cannes and Saint-Tropez. While on Saad’s private yacht in Cannes, he spotted one his favorite stars, Paul McCartney, in a limousine. Yaya’s trademark expectant smile made McCartney roll down the window and shake his hand in what became one of his most famous pictures.

Courtesy Yehia Mohamed With Jay Leno

Always on celebrity watch, he met Johnny Hallyday, Anouk Aimeé and Ismailia-born Claude François. Giving a concert at the time, François must have been surprised to see Yaya climbing up the stage past the bodyguards with his camera in hand. “He didn’t seem annoyed, I just wanted to say hello. He remembered me when I saw him again and even dedicated a song to me, ‘Alexandrie, Alexandra,’ when he saw me at another of his concerts,” he laughs. Things began to get better.

Attending the Cannes Film Festival in 1980 must have been like a kid’s first visit to a toy store. Click-happy Yaya started posing with everyone in sight and they welcomed it. “There was this director Coppola? You know, Nicholas’ [Cage] uncle? He was a very nice man. I went up to him and asked him if I could take a picture with him. Then he started to say something to me, but my English was really bad at the time, I told him ‘I don’t speak English,’ but he was still talking. He said, ‘I want you in a film.’ Honestly! Even if you look at the picture, you’ll see that he’s looking at me while I look straight at the camera. He’s my friend, you know. [A] really nice man, always smiles when he sees me. Later, when I was in Cairo for a visit, I showed the picture to Adel Imam. He went mad! ‘Do you know who this is?!’ he asked incredulously. ‘He’s a nice man,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe you met Francis Ford Coppola, he’s the greatest director in the world!’ said Imam.”

During the 1980s, with Yaya as his right-hand man, Saad opened a new company installing saunas and bathtubs in the homes of wealthy families in Jeddah. Although Yaya did his share of the work, his dream was shifting to the West. He remembers going back and forth to the States three times, in 1980, ‘82 and ‘84, but with every visit he was aware that taxes and living expenses would get in the way of starting his own business.

Over the following decade, Yaya continued to work in Saudi, got married and had two sons in Alex: Ahmed, who is currently enrolled in the Alexandria Maritime Academy, and Amr who is studying for his American diploma, Yaya adds with pride.

Ever persistent, he flew back to America in 1996, determined to find work. Struggling and starting again from scratch, Yaya had to familiarize himself with the American electrical system.

Courtesy Yehia Mohamed With Al Pacino

With the odd job here and there, Yaya now lives in Culver City, LA and runs his own handyman business. “The first celebrity I spotted in America was Anthony Quinn and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I completely went crazy,” he laughs.

Highly in demand, Yaya began to make house calls, frequenting celebrity homes in Beverly Hills and the whole of LA. “I was in Raquel Welch’s house just last week doing some fixing. She’s stingy, though; I don’t think I’ll be going there again. A man has to earn a living, you know,” he says. Thus started his double life: “I’d wear my overalls and do my rounds in my maintenance car all over Hollywood, but as soon as I was done, I’d change into my clothes camera in hand and go out looking for stars.”

It helps to know where celebs like to hang out, like the Steak House where Yaya took his infamous shot with Bill Clinton. “This picture really created a stir when I took it back to Alex and a friend of mine accused me of computer-manipulating my images. I was really upset because I couldn’t prove otherwise to him. But why would I do that? The pictures are genuine, I never even tried to sell any of them. Some of them are vintage classics signed by Jack Lemon and Charles Bronson. I’ve even been approached to compile them into a book. I’ve also been repeatedly asked to write my biography. I like the idea. Maybe I will,” he says.

Fascinated by the phenomenon that he became, America’s E! Entertainment Channel invited him to make a special appearance on a segment of its Celebrities Uncensored program a show that has cameras stalking stars with uncensored results. Shuffling through the pictures, the presenter kept quizzing him on names to which Yaya repeatedly gave his now famous answer, “I don’t know, but he is a nice guy.”

The episode then documented the making of the shot of Brad Pitt that Yaya took inside his car. Pitt and Yaya have become friends since then. Yaya recently visited Pitt on the set of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which he was shooting with Angelina Jolie, due next summer. It was on Celebrities Uncensored that Yaya got the chance to clear his name when he told the presenter about his friend’s accusation of faking pictures. “You don’t fake anything, Yaya,” said the on-air presenter, vindicating him. He has made several appearances since and just last week appeared on Extra Hollywood on E! Even George Clooney thinks Yaya has more airtime on E! than he does.

Courtesy Yehia Mohamed With Robert De Niro

Bars, clubs, restaurants, shops Yaya knows exactly where to go. Readily equipped with a digital camera now, there’s no stopping him. “I caught Snoop Doggy Dogg on his way out of a club one night. You should have seen the size of his bodyguard! It took some shuffling to get past him, but Snoop was so nice. One of my favorite clubbers is Leonardo DiCaprio. Even though he’s known to run away from photographers, he always hugs me and says ‘Hello.’ I have a picture of him accepting my papyrus roll gift. He loved it! I get little presents from the Khan when I visit Cairo: little leather camels, brass Nefertiti heads, scarabs. Leo asked me to get him a full-size mummy next time. I also really liked the late Christopher Reeves. He was so kind. Once at the Cannes Film Festival I said, ‘Sir, can I ’ and Reeves interrupted saying, ‘don’t call me sir, you’re a friend.’

“I’ll tell you who I don’t like though: Bruce Willis. When I asked him for a picture, he said, ‘What the f**k do you want?’ excuse my language but then again, he’s not always very lucid. Sometimes he’s coherent, but, you know Mickey Rourke, too, he’s not always completely there.”

He recently met Paul McCartney again, who laughed saying, “Yaya, you have been chasing me for 25 years.”

A regular presence at film premieres among other photographers, Yaya got his picture taken with Denzel Washington, whom he loves for his portrayal of Malcom X. “I met Brett Ratner again, he directed the Rush Hour films. When I didn’t say ‘Hello,’ he asked me why I was ignoring him, so I said, ‘Well, you didn’t keep your promise.’ He had promised me a role in the upcoming Rush Hour 3, but I hadn’t heard from him, but he assured me I was going to be in it. I’m a great fan,” he says.

When I met Yaya last Ramadan in Cairo on his annual visit to his family, he brought a large portfolio of photos he has gathered over the past three decades. They’re very organized: He has compiled in sections like The Heavyweights, which includes Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Martin Scorsese, as well as a Wrestling, African-American and even a Sports section that includes Agassi and Sampras. Further broken down into subsections, Matt Damon’s photo is next to his friend Ben Affleck and director Tony Scott next to his brother Ridley Scott, as well as the Star Trek captains William Shatner and Avery Brooks.

Courtesy Yehia Mohamed With Adel Imam

Charming, open and determined, it’s not surprising that Yehia’s large circle of celebrity friends is always growing. With contacts like these, he seems destined to even more fame. Who knows? Maybe he’ll end up in someone’s portfolio soon.  et