Nadia Lutfi

Nadia Lutfi or Nadia Loutfi (Arabic: نادية لطفي‎); (Arabic: بولا محمد مصطفى شفيق‎) January 1937 – 4 February 2020) was an Egyptian actress.[1] During her prime, she was one of the most popular actresses of the Egyptian cinema's golden age.

Nadia Lutfi نادية لطفي
Born	Poula Mohamed Mostafa Shafiq بولا محمد مصطفى شفيق (1937-01-03)3 January 1937 Cairo, Kingdom of Egypt
Died	4 February 2020(2020-02-04) (aged 83) Cairo, Egypt
Other names	Nadia Loutfi
Years active	1958–1993
Spouse(s)	Ibrahim Sadek Mohamed Sabry Adel El Beshary
Children	Ahmed Adel El Bashary

Life and career

Born in Cairo as Poula Mohamed Mostafa Shafiq to an Egyptian father and an Egyptian mother called Fatma.[2][3][4] Lutfi was raised as a devout Muslim.[2][5] Nadia began acting as a hobby; when she was 10 years old she participated in a play at her school and did very well. When the 24-year-old was about to make her screen debut in 1958, Omar Sharif was the reigning king of Egyptian cinema, and his wife, Egyptian superstar Faten Hamama, its queen. The star couple had just had a smash hit with the film La Anam with Hamama as "Nadia Lotfy", a willful teen who destroys her father's marriage. Poula adopted the forename and a variation of the surname of the character as her own.

With her fresh new name, the young actress was spotted by director Ramsis Naguib and she took her first role in a modest, black & white drama, Soultan in 1958.[6] Her second picture was a smaller role in one of the film landmarks of its time, Cairo Station. In 1963, she played a Frankish woman warrior of the Crusade era, donning full armor to go into battle against her Christian-Arab lover, in Naser Salah el Dine (occasionally shown on television in the United States as Saladin and the Great Crusades). In Lil-Rigal Faqat (1964), Lutfi and co-star Soad Hosny played women geologists who, denied employment, respond by disguising themselves as men and going to work, where they find they must suppress their romantic instincts to sustain the disguise.[7]

In the mid-1960s, she starred in two films that were based on stories by Nobel-winning author Naguib Mahfouz, just a few years following the publication of his widely banned novel of Moses, Jesus and Mohammed, Children of Gebelawi. Lutfi finished the decade starring in Abi foq al-Shagara (1969) as a nightclub dancer who beds a much younger man, then discovers that she once knew his father equally well.[7] She starred in several films with Soad Hosny, including Al-Saba' Banat (The Seven Girls).[8][9]

In the 1970s, her career wound down as Egypt's "Golden Age" for films drew to a close. Having made close to 50 films in the first 11 years of her career, she only made three in the decade that followed, and did not work in films since 1981. In 2006, she returned to the spotlight when a video by young Lebanese singer Nourhanne recreated a musical scene from one of her first films, Bain al Qasrayn.

In 2014, the Cairo International Film Festival paid tribute to Nadia Lutfi by using her photo on the Festival's official poster.[6]

Death

On 4 February 2020, after being in intensive care for some time, Nadia Lutfi died in Maadi Hospital[10] in Cairo, Egypt at age 83 from an undisclosed illness.[11]

Filmography

Year	Title	Arabic Title
1958	Cairo Station	Bāb al-Ḥadīd باب الحديد‎
1958	Soultan
1959	Forever Yours	Hubb lel-Abad حب إلى الأبد
1961	The Sun Will Never Set	La Tutf'e al-Shams لا تطفئ الشمس‎
1961	Wonderful Memories	Zekraiat Gamila ذكريات جميلة‎
1961	The Seven Girls	Al-Saba' Banat
1961	Part Virgin
1961	My Only Love	Hoby al-Waheed حبي الوحيد
1961	Giants of the Sea
1962	The Judge of Love
1962	A Student's Diary
1962	The Sin
1962	Without an Appointment
1962	Struggle of Giants
1962	Days Without Love
1962	Come Back Mother
1963	Saladin the Victorious	Al Nasser Salah Ad-Din الناصر صلاح الدين
1963	The Dark Glasses
1963	Marriage in Danger
1963	A Bachelor's Life
1964	Unforgettable Love
1964	The Years of Love
1964	The Girls' Revolution
1964	Love, Pleasure, and Youth
1964	Alone With My Tears
1964	A Souvenir of Life
1965	The Impossible
1965	Unfaithfulness
1965	The Private Teacher
1965	For Men Only	Lel Regal Fakat للرجال فقط
1966	The Enemy of Women
1966	A Widow is Required
1967	The Long Nights
1967	Castle of Longing
1967	Crazy Love Songs
1967	Garima fil hay el hady
1967	Endama nouheb
1967	El saman wal karif
1967	Bint shakieh
1968	Three Stories
1968	Days of Love
1969	My Father Atop a Tree
1969	The Night of Counting the Years	Al-Mummia المومياء
1972	The Visitor
1973	Wildflowers
1975	Badi'a Masabny
1977	Wa sakatat fe bahr el-asal
1978	A Trip Inside a Woman
1980	Where Do You Hide the Sun?	Ayna Tukhabi'un al-Shams?
1981	Al-Aqmar
1982	El-akdar el-damia
1986	House of the Poisoned Family

Footnotes

1. "نادية لطفي". ليالينا.
2. بالفيديو.. "نادية لطفي" تكشف سر تسميتها بـ"بولا", وأضافت نادية لطفي، خلال حوارها مع الإعلامي أسامة كمال ببرنامج " مساء dmc " أنها اشتركت مع الفنانة الراحلة سعاد حسني في مقابلة وفد بولندي مما جعل الصحفي الشهير كمال الملاخ يطلق شائعة أنها من أصل بولندي، مؤكدة انها مصرية 100% واسم والدتها "فاطمة" ووالدها يدعى "محمد". وروت الفنانة الكبيرة أنها سميت باسم "بولا" نسبة الى الممرضة الراهبة التي كانت تراعي أمها أثناء ولادتها فحينما علمت أن اسمها "بولا" أصرت أن تسمي ابنتها هذا الاسم وأصبح الاسم الحقيقي للفنانة نادية لطفي.
3. "Nadia Loutfi".
4. "Famed Egyptian actress Nadia Lutfi dies at 83". Arab News. February 4, 2020.
5. "نادية لطفى: 'والدتى مصرية واسمها فاطمة وسمتنى'بولا' بسبب راهبة'". بوابة الفجر.
6. "PHOTOS: Nadia Lutfi, an Egyptian beauty - Film - Arts & Culture - Ahram Online". english.ahram.org.eg. Retrieved 2017-11-15.
7. Nadia Lutfi on IMDb
8. "Soad Hosny filmography, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 28 June - 4 July 2001, Issue No. 540". Archived from the original on 10 August 2015. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
9. "Soad Hosny", najatalsaghira.wordpress.com; accessed 28 August 2015.
10. "Egyptian Actress Nadia Lutfi Dies Aged 83". EgyptianStreets.
11. "وفاة الفنانة المصرية الكبيرة نادية لطفي". RT Arabic.

External links

• Cairo Station film review
• Profile