Thursday Rants and Rave: #S02EP03 Amira Amir’s Oedipus

Hello, and welcome back to a special episode of the Thursday Rants and Rave Podcast. This episode was recorded and edited before the war in Gaza in September 2023. 

I had to upload it now as I found that some people are still sharing the claims about the late Egyptian actor Amira Amir. 

Tonight, this is what I ranted about in Arabic.

This episode is dedicated to old Egyptian cinema fans and lovers. 

Oedipus: An Egyptian Take

According to YouTube and TikTok videos, Saadia Abdel Rahman Abu Al-Ala was born on 17 January 1920 in a Sharqia Governorate village to a butcher father.

Amira Amir on the cover of 
"Monday" Magazine in 1949

One day, a health inspector came to inspect his butchery, only to find he was violating the legal selling prices. A fight broke out between them, and it ended when the butcher killed the inspector with his cleaver.

The girl’s father was sentenced to life in prison and died during his sentence. 

At 16 years old, Saadia was forced to work as a seamstress to support herself and her family. She was gorgeous, and the village mayor proposed to her, even though he was older than her. She married him and gave birth to her eldest son, Khalid. 

However, after years of marriage, she decided to leave her husband and son and flee to Cairo, due to her husband's alcoholism.

After Saadia escaped to Cairo, her husband fell into a deep depression that drove him to suicide. As a result, his sister took in the child Khalid to raise him after his mother's escape. 

In Cairo, Saadia Abdel Rahman began looking for work. She saw an ad in the newspaper for a new film called "My Daughter" seeking new faces. She immediately went to audition for the role, and her striking beauty was enough to convince the director to give her the lead role. 

Amira Amir on the cover of
"Studio" Magazine "April 1950"

Aziza Amir, a famous actress, was also impressed with Saadia and agreed to give her the role. 

She gave Saadia the stage name "Amira Amir." From that moment on, she became famous and was the talk of the town.

Amira Amir's career took off. She met the director Kamal Selim, and they fell in love and got married. After several years, Kamal Selim passed away. 

Amira Amir continued her career in cinema, and then she married Mohamed Abdel Jawad, the assistant of her late husband. 

However, the marriage was short-lived and ended in divorce. Later, she married the Palestinian-Jordanian singer Gharam Shima.

Amir had a daughter from her Palestinian-Jordanian husband. However, after a while, they divorced, and she left her daughter with him. 

She then married an Armenian man who lived in Egypt, but they divorced as well because he wanted to move to America, and she refused to go with him.

Amira's fourth marriage was to an Egyptian army officer named Ibrahim Fayez Sabry. They had two children but divorced after six years of marriage. The famous actress then immigrated to America to start a new chapter in her life.

In the United States, she worked as a dancer in Broadway theatres. There, she met a young Israeli-Jewish man, and they fell in love. He proposed to her, and despite the great backlash she faced from the Egyptian embassy and the Egyptian people, she married him and obtained American citizenship.

Amira Amir noticed that her Jewish husband spoke Arabic fluently at times. When she asked him about it, he told her his story. He was a young Egyptian man who met a Jewish woman and fell in love with her. 

They immigrated to Israel together, where he converted to Judaism to marry her. He obtained Israeli citizenship in exchange for renouncing his Egyptian citizenship and came to America.

Amir was intrigued by the young man's story, and she asked him for more details about his Egyptian roots.

 She asked him about his past life, where he lived in Egypt, and he told her he was born in Sharqia.

Amira Amir asked her husband about his family and father. He told her his father's name and that he had married his beautiful and younger mother, Saadiya, but she had died. Amira Amir was shocked and asked him, "Is your real name, Khalid?"

Khalid was surprised that she knew his real name and answered that it was his real name. Saadiya Abdel Rahman, better known as Amira Amir, fell into a coma due to her shock, and she was immediately taken to the hospital. When she woke up from her coma, she told him that she was his mother.

Khalid immediately called his aunt, who told him the truth that his mother had not died and that she was a famous actress named Amira Amir. As shocked as he was, he revealed the truth about his marriage to his mother. 

Amira Amir in a coloured scene by me from one of her films 
She reminded me of Uma Thurman 

Without thinking twice, he committed suicide by throwing himself in front of a car that was driving down the street. Knowing that her son whom she married had died, Saadia had a heart attack and died too.

The son and mother died on the same day. 

I can't count the number of videos on YouTube and TikTok recounting this modern take on Oedipus.

Amira Amir: The true story

Here is the true story of Amira Amir.

Amira Amir's poster
a present from Kawkab

Amira Amir or Saadia Abu Ela Abdel Rahman “That’s the real name” was born in January 1920 in Heliopolis to a father who was a famous butcher. 

Her father was imprisoned for manslaughter after killing a man unintentionally in a fight. He served his sentence and was released years later.

Saadia, the eldest daughter, had eight siblings whom she raised and cared for, especially after her father's arrest. 

Before starting her career, she was married and had a daughter called Nagwan.

Saadia Abu Ela started her career in cinema in 1944 when she was discovered by the famous Egyptian cinema director Niazi Mostafa. Mostafa gave her a role in a film called “My Daughter,” starring Egyptian pioneer actress and producer Aziza Amir.

 Aziza Amir adopted Saadia artistically and, like her godmother, lent her name as a stage name; thus, Amira Amir was born. 

There was a long-time rumour that Amira Amir was the daughter of Aziza Amir but it is untrue.

In the same year, Amira Amir played a small role in a film called “Hanan” or “Tenderness,” directed by Egyptian pioneer director Kamal Salim. “You can watch it here.” 

An ad for "Hanan" or "Tenderness" 
Fathia Ahmed (R) and Amira Amir (L) 

Salim fell in love with her, and they were married till his death in 1945.

Interestingly in 1945, Amira Amir appeared in two films “Love Story” and “ Friday Night”, both directed by her late husband Salim.

One of the posters of "Friday's Night" film which was a hit 

A comedy starring Anwar Wagdy in his prime and legendary Tahia Carioca  “Friday Night” was a box office hit. 

I think it was Amira Amir's most successful and watched film. It was among the films Egyptian State TV used to air constantly in the 1990s.

Amir continued acting after the death of Kamal Salim.

In 1947, she produced and co-starred in a musical film called “Everybody is Singing” with Camiela, Singer Nagat Ali and Lebanese singers Mohamed Salman and Gharam Shiba. “Trivia: Salman was the first Lebanese singer to start acting in the Egyptian cinema opening the door for Lebanese singers since then. That film witnessed the first appearance of child actress Nagah Hosny who became legendary singer Nagat El-Sagheera decades later. She was named Nagat El-Sagheera aka Nagat Jr. or the smaller Nagat because of  Singer Nagat Ali aka Nagat Sr.”

Originally from Lebanon, Andre Shiba, or Gharam Shiba, was born in 1919 and married Amira Amir. Some accounts say that they met and fell in love before the film.

Amir and Shiba had a daughter called Assamah but their marriage did not continue. 

The Lebanese singer wanted to immigrate to Argentina while the Egyptian film star refused to leave Egypt and her family.

There was a gap in her cinema activity from 1947 until 1953. I think those years included her marriage and the birth of her second daughter.

In 1953, she co-starred with Egyptian actor Kamal El-Shenawy in the first Egyptian-Moroccan film production, “A Doctor by Force,” based on a play by Molière.

Amira Amir on the cover of the 
Kawkab issue "25 November 1958"

The film, which is considered one of the lost Egyptian films, was among the first coloured Arab films. It is unclear if a copy of the film is in Morocco.

She continued acting till 1955 then she decided to try life in the New World.

In the mid-1950s, Amir travelled to the United States, where, according to her family, she reportedly worked on a TV network.

She also met and married an American Egyptian journalist called Medhat Khalfa. Again the marriage was short-lived because the Egyptian actress wanted to return to Cairo and her family. "It would be interesting if anyone knows more info about Mr Khalfa" 

Upon her return, she started a clothing business and opened a shop for ladies’ clothes called “Miss Egypt” in Downtown Cairo’s Soliman Pasha aka Talaat Herb Street.

Following the inauguration of Egyptian TV in 1960, she became one of the first TV hosts, presenting for a short time TV shows called “Behind the Curtains” and “White Piano.”

She returned in a supporting role in 1961's Under the City’s Sky, which her friend Kamal El-Shenawy co-starred in. It was a flop at the box office, and I guess that did not encourage her to continue acting.

Later, she quit fame when she married a retired army major called Ibrahim Fayez Sabry. 

She gave birth to Bahaa in 1963 and ِAmira in 1966. 

Amira and Sabry at
Cairo Tower 

In April 1968, Amira Amir and her husband Ibrahim Sabry visited her daughter Assamah in Lebanon where she used to work as an air hostess. Amira fell ill and was diagnosed with pneumonia. 

She was transferred to the hospital but did not stay too long. She died in Beirut on 5 April 1968. She was only 48 years old. Her husband brought her body back to Egypt where she was buried.

Her father “Abu Ela Abdel Rahman was already free and unfortunately alive when she died. According to her obituary which was shared by her family online to counter the lies, her eldest daughter was already married and living in Tanta when she died.

Her daughter Assamah Shiba became a BBC Arabic service host years later.

Amira Amir went on to oblivion for decades, but she returned to the showbiz news in the 21^st century when her ex-daughter-in-law Nelly Karim became a star in her own way whether in films or TV series. Nelly Karim’s first husband is a businessman and interior designer, Bahaa Sabry, and Amira Amir’s youngest son.

They are divorced now but Karim’s fame especially after the 2010s when she reigned as a new Egyptian drama queen made Amira Amir return to the lights in the most misfortunate way ever online. 

The source of that modern myth

YouTube is the main source of that modern myth that became a legend and a fact for some.

That modern and poorly made rip-off of "Oedipus" was shared on social media through the YouTube channel "Tayyif El-Hub" (The Shadow of Love).  

However, any search on Google or YouTube now redirects to the tabloid YouTube channel "Sheikh Al-Haraa Al-Saidi" (The Neighbor's Upper Egyptian Elderly)

Amira Amir looks stunning on 
a magazine cover in 1955

It's the same channel with a different name but has the same theme of topics and videos.

The YouTube channel "Sheikh El-Hara El-Sa'adi" and its showrunner produce horrific lies and fabrications, especially about late Egyptian and Arab celebrities. 

The channel relies on fake scandals, which the presenter narrates in a fake Upper Egyptian accent attracting people to YouTube with eye-catching tabloid headlines such as "The Death of Prince William, Diana’s son".

With over 4 million subscribers and more than 228 million views since 2014, I don't think he'll stop anytime soon.

The worst thing is that this man spreads lies that are then picked up by other YouTubers who want to increase their views, although they are lies that violate a few local laws.

Even alleged news websites in Egypt shared this story without any correction for the sake of views.

Amir’s daughters Assamah Shiba and Amira Sabry revealed to “El-3alm Dot Com” in 2022 that they spoke with the Head of the Actor syndicate, Ashraf Zaki, to take action against that YouTube channel and its terrible rumours about actors. Nothing has been done.

Personally, I believe Amir Amira's family and other deceased artists’ families should report that YouTube Channel to YouTube for breaking its policies through an online petition or through Google Middle East.

Anyhow, here is my attempt to reveal the truth about a myth that, thanks to social media, is on the verge of becoming a truth. Amira Amir does not deserve this, nor does any other person.

Now if you reach this, thank you for reading this very long post. 😊

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