AHMED ZAKI WAS to my generation what Omar Sharif was to that of my parents. Every era has its heroes.

When Zaki’s death was announced on March 27, I thought it was just another rumor. Sadly it wasn’t. Ever since he was diagnosed with lung cancer a little over a year ago, the media has been following his every move. His struggle against the illness, which was invading his whole body, was the subject of daily front-page reports and the theme of songs by Tamer Hosni, internationally acclaimed Tunisian singer Latifa and Maged El-Masry.

The rumor mill had been turning to the extent that Zaki witnessed his own obituary on the small screen and heard his death broadcast on the radio. Even the respected Monte Carlo radio station swallowed the bait and spread the sad news, only to detract it soon afterwards. Misinformed satellite channels would air clippings of his most famous scenes along with the appropriate words of consolation to his family, friends and fans. But like the late Farid Shawky before him, whose demise was made public weeks before it happened; and poet Naguib Sorour, who read the scoop in the papers, Zaki had reportedly met the four consecutive rumors with a resigned smile, which only highlighted the severity of his condition.

Updates on his health were aired daily on Orbit’s popular “El Qahira El Yom” program, where a stringer was camped at the Dar El-Fouad Hospital 24-hours a day. People in showbiz, young and old, took shifts to stay by his side, while actress Raghda was charged with the task of organizing his visits. A team of oncologists and other specialists headed by Dr. Yasser Abdel Qader consulted with French lung cancer specialist Dr. Thierry Chevalier and reported to Health Minister Mohammed Awad Tageddine. Following the news of his steadily deteriorating condition, Zaki even received a call from President Mubarak.

Anxious about my trip to the hospital a week prior to his passing, I couldn’t sleep all night, thinking how the Black Panther of the Egyptian cinema might look: prostrate on a hospital bed, slipping in and out of comas, wired to a heart-lung machine. It was a chilling thought. His life, a legendary one, made his mortality impossible to apprehend. His life, a typical rags-to-riches story, is reminiscent of many of our very own black-and-white melodramas. Born on August 1, 1949 in the humble Husseineya neighborhood of Zagazig, he was orphaned soon after his first birthday when his father passed away. His mother, left destitute, had no option but to remarry to save them from the clutches of poverty.

Zaki’s passion for acting began at an early age. During the time he spent at an industrial middle school, he stood out among his colleagues for having an uncanny ability to imitate the well-known actors of his day, like Mahmoud El-Meligui and Zaki Rostom. He distinguished himself in the school’s theater troupe and in productions by the Zagazig Cultural Palace, receiving a nationwide best actor award. In a way, acting was a means of escape from the harsh reality of his poverty and the discomfort of being forced to live with a stepfather. After he received his diploma in 1967, actor Wafik Fahim (who also held an administrative position at the school) took him under his wing. Having faith in Zaki’s raw talents, he took him to Cairo to help him apply for a degree at the Higher Theater Institute.

Throughout his career, Ahmed Zaki’s portrayed a wide range of characters.

While he was still a student, he landed his first theater role in the big city. In the hit play Hello Shalaby, he acted opposite veterans Abdel Moneim Madbouli (also the play’s director) and then newcomer Mohammed Sobhi. Zaki stole the show with his portrayal of a wannabe actor and bellboy desperate to show-off his talents to an acting troupe staying at a hotel. His old knack for imitating Mahmoud El-Meligui earned him a permanent place with El-Fannaneen El-Mottahideen (The United Artists Theater Group).

His big break came soon after when he played Ahmed, dubbed El-Shaer (the poet) in the greatest of all classic comedies, Madraset El-Moshaghibeen (School of Delinquents). This turning point in the careers of the soon-to-be star comedians Adel Imam, Said Saleh and Younes Shalaby, had Zaki cast as the impoverished, romantic high school student stuck in a class full of uptown losers who looked down on him and frequently gave him handouts. The part reflected Zaki’s own life, his battle against poverty and despair, as well as his determination to improve himself and realize his dreams.

Despite the relatively small role, Zaki’s captivating performance caught the eye of the major players in the business. Amidst this comedic melting pot, Zaki clearly signaled the birth of a master tragedian (performer of tragedies). Hot on the heels of the huge success of this play, he joined the team of yet another theater classic, El-Eyal Kibret (The Kids Have Grown Up) a sort of reunion for the cast of Madraset El-Moshaghibeen, where Zaki, Saleh and Shalaby played siblings caught in the middle of a domestic crisis when their father (Hassan Mostafa) plans to take a second wife.

Zaki graduated from the Theater Institute in 1973 with more offers than he could wish for tucked under his belt. His stage presence was admired by critics and audiences alike, and despite the fact that he bore no resemblance to the typical jeune premier image of the time his curly hair and dark skin being enough to disqualify him from the status of teen idol, at a time when the Rushdi Abaza/Ahmed Ramzi look was deeply entrenched in people’s minds he was approached by a film producer to co-star in his first cinematic role in the war epic Bodour (1974). At this point, he made a strategic career move by quitting El-Fananneen El-Mottahideen in favor of playing the part of a soldier opposite Mahmoud Yassin and Naglaa Fathi in this romantic drama set against the backdrop of the victory of the 1973 October War. In the same year, he played another soldier in Mohammed Rady’s classic Abnaa El-Samt (Children of Silence).

Following a few more supporting roles over the next four years, Zaki got the chance of a lifetime in 1978, when he was nominated for the lead role in Shafika Wi Metwally (Shafika and Metwally) opposite Soad Hosni. Directed by Ali Badrakhan, the film was based on a folktale about brother and sister Shafika and Metwally, where the wayward sister escapes her petty existence in a small Upper Egyptian village and moves to the city only to acquire a bad reputation as a belly dancer and kept woman. Badrakhan gave the story an unconventional socio-political edge by setting it at the decadent age of the British occupation in the 1930s, when depraved Egyptian Pashas stopped at nothing to increase their wealth and influence, even if it meant trading in their own people’s lives and sacrificing others’ integrity. Zaki masterfully expressed a whole range of complex emotions oscillating between Metwally’s love for his sister and his blind determination to kill her and rid himself of the stigma of her bad reputation. The credibility he brought to the character distinguished him amidst a powerful, star-studded cast of veterans like Ahmed Mazhar and Gamil Rateb.

Zaki in his popular El-Bey El-Bawab.

A year later, Zaki reached another milestone through his role as the rebellious student in Youssef Chahine’s autobiographical Iskinderiya Lei (Alexandria, Why?), a role that catapulted him straight into his decade of stardom the 1980s. At a time riddled with what came to be known as aflam el-mu’awalaat (contractor’s films), when both producers and actors churned out low-budget flicks seeking a quick buck in the video market, Zaki was very selective, starring in some of the most important films to be produced in the past 25 years. He began in 1980 with El-Batneya, a film about the drug culture named after one of the most infested areas in Cairo. In 1981, he teamed up with acclaimed director Mohammed Khan, whose career was still in its budding phase. The chemistry between the two was undeniable, judging by the success of Taer Ala El-Tariq (Bird on the Road), where Zaki plays a taxi driver who has serious commitment problems with women, which lead to his tragic end. His ability to portray marginalized elements in Egyptian society with such depth, struck a chord with the broader base of viewers, who soon became die-hard fans, as one film after the other Zaki became the embodiment and mouthpiece for the Everyman’s thoughts, feelings, ambitions, despair and conflicts.

Zaki’s second collaboration with Khan took place in the same year with an equally pivotal work that brought him together with Soad Hosni for the second time. In Maw’ed Ala El-Ashaa (Dinner Invitation), he plays the new man in Hosni’s life. Their relationship is plagued by his beloved’s dark past and presently haunted by her obsessive ex-husband (Hussein Fahmi) who refuses to let her go.

In 1983, he starred in one of his most memorable roles in El-Modmin (The Addict), where his portrayal of the horrors of drug addiction carried an important message at a time when this dangerous phenomenon had become a prime social disease and taboo issue most families kept hidden in the closet. This film was followed by a series of successful duos with celebrated actress Nabila Ebeid. In 1984, he played the part of a lawyer in a rape case in El-Takhsheeba (The Prison Cell). This was followed in the same year by El-Raqisa Wal Tabbal (The Dancer and the Percussionist) and Shader El-Samak (The Fish Market) in 1986. Also in 1984, he appeared in a new light in a biopic of an Egyptian-German boxing champion entitled Al-Nemr Al-Aswad (The Black Panther). Little by little, he began to earn cult status among the younger generation a status only strengthened by one of the few comic roles he played about 10 years later in Mr. Karate.

Zaki reached the pinnacle of his career and the point of complete maturity as an actor in Atef El-Tayeb’s ingenious Zawget Ragol Mohem (The Wife of an Important Man) for which he received a best actor award at the Damascus Film Festival in 1988. In the film, he depicts the rise and fall of a high-ranking officer in the 1970s. A psychologically disturbed, aggressive megalomaniac; he ruins his relationship with his wife (Mervat Amin) and eventually shoots himself when he is stripped of his influential position. Zaki’s exceptional performance bridged the symbolic link between the character and former President Nasser, which critics claimed was El-Tayeb’s deeper objective.

More awards began to pour in with every subsequent film he made. He was recognized with various local and regional awards for: Ahlam Hind Wi Camillia (The Dreams of Hind and Camillia) directed by Mohammed Khan in 1988 where he plays a con artist; as well as Imraa Wahida La Takfi (One Woman Isn’t Enough) directed by Inas El-Degheidi in 1990 for his role as an opportunistic, promiscuous journalist.

Zaki’s acting achievements included films, plays and television series.

The year 1991 marked his third cinematic encounter with Soad Hosni and his second collaboration with Ali Badrakhan. El-Ra’ey Wal Nisaa (The Keeper and the Women) was Honsi’s comeback to the silver screen. In this adaptation of the classic play Crime on Goat Island by Ugo Petti, Zaki plays Hassan, the stranger who enters the lives of three women (played by Hosni, Youssra and Mirna, representing three different generations) who live in a remote house somewhere in the middle of the desert. His presence sets in motion an erotically charged domestic drama and unleashes the three women’s sexual and emotional frustrations.

A year later, he plays a lawyer in Didd El-Hokuma (Against the Government, 1992), directed by Atef El-Tayeb. The film is a poignant criticism of government corruption and social injustice. In it, a hitherto unscrupulous, self-serving lawyer decides to file a lawsuit against the government when he discovers that his young son from a previous marriage was one of the victims of a public transport accident, demanding compensation for the families.

Also in the early 1990s, he collaborated with director Tarek Alarian in El-Embrator (The Emperor, 1990), a remake of Al Pacino’s Scar Face and El-Pasha (1993) where he plays a police officer trying to get the head of an organized crime cartel. The two films were major steps in his popularity rating, both artistically and in terms of mass appeal.

In 1997, Zaki embarked on a project that no one had dared to attempt before him. He embodied the character of former President Gamal Abdel Nasser in a black-and-white film entitled Nasser 56, directed by Mohammed Fadel, which focuses on the late president’s decision to nationalize the Suez Canal. Despite the poor directing and accusations of over-glorifying Nasser, Zaki’s rendition was flawless and whetted his appetite to later portray Egypt’s third president Anwar Sadat in the 2002 biopic entitled Ayam El-Sadat (Days of Sadat), which he personally funded out of his own pocket. Directed by Mohammed Khan, this was a better film than its predecessor and, once again, Zaki proved his deft talent for imitation. Not only was he able to transform his features to physically resemble the late president, but he also managed to capture his spirit, imitate his gestures, turns of speech, voice tone and movements. Being the only actor to depict two Egyptian presidents in two period films, Zaki was awarded the prestigious National Badge of Arts by President Mubarak. It was even rumored that Zaki was planning the third installment of his presidential series in a film about Mubarak’s valiant actions in the October war.

Zaki’s presence on the small screen was on a much smaller scale, but was qualitatively very significant. In the late 1970s he starred in a TV series about the life of modernist intellectual and author Taha Hussein in El-Ayyam (The Days) based on Hussein’s autobiography. It would take a very daring actor, if ever, to attempt that role again. In the mid-1980s, he appeared in a new guise with Soad Hosni in a he said/she said-type daily series titled Howa Wi Heyya (Him and Her). His talent for comedy, singing and dancing was revealed in the series for the first time. He also starred in two television movies, the first Inny La Akdhib Wa Lakkini Atagammal (I’m not Lying but I’m Pretending, 1986), a film based on a novel by Ihsan Abdel Koddous that tackles the issue of social compatibility through the story of a university lecturer (the son of a grave-digger) who gets involved with his uptown colleague, played by Athar El Hakim. Ten years later, he starred in another TV film that was first released in cinemas titled Idhak El-Sura Titlaa Helwa (Smile for the Camera) where he plays a middle-aged photographer and widower who sticks to his principals despite all difficulties.

Zaki in his role portraying former president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

My trip to the hospital that day was fruitless. There was a state of emergency and nobody was allowed near him except his only son Haitham, the product of a short marriage to the late actress Hala Fouad who died of cancer only two years after their separation. Zaki never remarried after her death.

Even though the actor has passed away, his legacy will continue to live on. With 56 films in his outstanding thespian career, Ahmed Zaki has enriched our lives over the past three decades. His dedication will continue to be a source of inspiration to many young actors, since despite his illness, he had mustered enough courage and stamina to almost finish filming the project of his dreams: the life of Egyptian singer Abdel Halim Hafez. This high-budget biopic of the legendary singer, written by Mahfouz Abdel Rahman, produced by Good News Cinema Production (headed by Emad Adib) and directed by Sherif Arafa, will be released in cinemas upon completion later this year. A young actor, yet to be announced, will be cast to portray the youthful Hafez.

Ironically Zaki died days before the anniversary of Hafez’ death (1977). An untimely death and a veritable loss to Egypt, Zaki’s memory will never fade. et