I turned to my bedside table this morning, and as usual, scrolled through every single social media app on my phone only to find that the popular, and much-loved Egyptian actress Ragaa El Gedawy, 81 years old, had passed away.
“A great talent and soul left our world today! Egyptian actress Ragaa El Gedawy passed away earlier this morning. The beauty queen’s career spanned over six decades, acting in more than 100 Arabic films and TV shows. She’s gone but never forgotten,” wrote the El Gouna Film Festival Instagram account.
Those words stuck with me. Truly, she is gone but will never be forgotten for all her work in film and television. For the younger generations, you might remember her well from Grand Hotel, one of her most recent series, and from appearance on Amr Adeeb’s shows.
On May 24, she was hospitalized after being infected with COVID-19, the same virus that has taken so many people we love in our families, friends and day to day life. Gedawy was kept in the intensive care unit at Ismailia’s isolation hospital.
It is unclear how she became infected but the announcement came a few days after she had just finished shooting ‘Le’bet El Nesya’ (Game of Oblivion) that was screened during Ramadan back in May.
Ragaa El Gedawy: Earlier Days and Career Path
Gedawy was born on September 6, 1938 and began her career in film and television in 1958 and has since continued in this path. It goes without saying that she was considered one of the most prominent Arab female artists, and was one of the oldest working actors in the business.
Born in Ismailia and eventually moving to Cairo, she did not initially start as an actress. According to The Gulf News, she attended a party in Al Andalus Garden when a beauty pageant was taking place around 1958. At 20 years old, she competed and won “Miss Cotton Egypt”.
“Al Geddawy said that this title was not based on beauty, but on knowledge and education. It required her to travel the world and represent her country of Egypt,” the article said. Perhaps that was the start of the story. She had from then on worked as a model for sometime and was introduced to acting with the 1959 film ‘Do’aa Al Karwan’
From then on, she starred in various films and television roles. Al Geddawy was a part of Egypt’s entertainment industry at a time when it was developing, especially from the 1940s all the way to the 1990s. “Al Geddawy was there for all of them, portraying various characters encompassing the myriad strata of Egyptian society, ranging from the glitterati to the working class,” wrote The National.
At a young age, Al Geddawy worked alongside other Egyptian stars: Faten Hamama, Adel Imam, Omar Sharif, and Soaad Husni. Many newspapers cited some of her notable work but it is hard to make a short list. The commonly cited one are; Letani Ma Araft Al Hob (1976) and Fi Alhayat Hob Akhar (1997), and her comedy work in Adel Imam’s plays: Al Wad Sayed Al Shaghal (1985) and 1993’s Al Zaeem.
But these are the older cinema appearances. Here recent work is just as good. A personal favorite of mine is Grand Hotel, an originally Spanish love story that was re-made into Arabic. Almost everyone was watching the Grand Hotel a few Ramadan’s ago in 2016.
El Gedawy will surely be missed and her absence will be felt. But her work in cinema and entertainment will live on. May she rest in peace.
