Leila Mourad
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Leila Mourad (Arabic: ليلى مراد) (February 17, 1918- November 21, 1995) was an Egyptian singer. She is also credited as "Laila Mourad" and "Layla Mourad".
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[edit] Life
She was born in Al Daher, Cairo in February 1917 to a Jewish Egyptian father, Ibrahim Zaki Mordachi, a famous religious cantor (Hazzan), singer and musician in the twenties, and to a Jewish Polish mother, Gamilah "Salmon" who gave birth to Mourad, Ibrahim, Malak, Mounir and Samihah. Her brother Mounir Mourad was an Egyptian actor and composer.
Jewish composer Dawoud Housni, who composed the first Operetta in the Arabic language, helped her start her career by composing two songs: "hairana Leh Bein El Eloub" (Why can't you choose from among lovers), and "Hoa el dala'a ya'ani khessam" (Does daliance mean avoiding me?). Further success came when the prominent Egyptian composer Mohammed Abdel Wahab heard her singing and gave her a role in his film Yahia el Hob (Viva Love!) in 1938. With the rise of antisemitism in the late 1930s and the 1940s, she converted to Islam in the hope of protecting her career in show business. Several of her family members were dismayed and her conversion did not help her for too long.
In 1953, she was selected, over Umm Khulthum, as the official singer of the Egyptian revolution. Umm Khulthum, herself a respected and popular singer, was said to have been furious. Shortly thereafter, a rumor that she visited Israel and donated money there, placed her as a suspect of spying and made some Arab radio stations boycott her. She denied these allegations and she was called for judicial investigations. All along, she was defensive against the antisemitic innuendos, insisting that she is a Muslim.
No proof had been found in Egypt that she contributed money to Israel. Her visit to the Jewish state, where several members of her family fled and settled, was however neither confirmed nor categorically denied by the authorities who investigated. Nevertheless, the Egyptian public, who never took the actress conversion to Islam seriously and considered her Jewish all along, continued to love her. The religious commitment of actresses, singers, and dancers are not taken seriously by Egyptians.
However, the death sentence to her career came almost immediately after Gamal Abd el Nasser took power. Within two months Nasser's coming to power in 1954, Leila Mourad, by now at the pinnacle of her career, publicly and abruptly declared that she is ending her acting and singing altogether. She gave no explanation. At about the same time, Umm Khulthum came up with the song "Ya Gamal Ya Messal el Wataneyah" (O Gamal, you are the role model of patriotism). Under Nasser's rule, during which Egypt's role in the Arab-Israeli conflict deepened, Jews immediately started to disappear from Egyptian public life as most left for Europe and Israel. Laila Murad died in a hospital in Cairo in 1995.
[edit] Family and Marriages
Laila's relationship to her family was complicated. Since the accusations against her, she tried to distance herself from other Jews, including her family. In the years following the Six Day War, Egyptian Jewish men between the ages of seventeen and sixty were rounded up, incarcerated and tortured in the notorious detention camps of Abu Za'abal and Tura. Laila's brother, Ishak Zaki, was among these internees. Though after a year of incarceration family visits were allowed, Laila never visited her brother. Nearly all of the incarcerated Jews had their citizenship or residency rights denied before being deported out of the country, taken from the camp to the airport. Laila Murad did not see her brother off at the airport.
Laila Mourad married Anwar Wagdi (1945-1953). They were married and divorced three times. Rumors spread that Wagdi divorced her because he sensed that her conversion to Islam was an act of convenience, and that her loyalty remained to Judaism, and by extension, Israel. However, Wagdi, who married Laila before her conversion, himself denied that religion was a cause of their divorces. She was later to marry, and divorce, Wagih Abaza of the Abaza Family. Later she married the producer Fateen Abdul Wahab and she gave birth to her son Zaki Fattin Abdul Wahab, and finally divorced in 1969.
[edit] Works
Her famous songs include:
- "Yama Arak el nasim"
- "Ya msafer we nassi hawak"
- "Albi dalleli"
- "leeh khaletni ahebak"
- "Elmaya we el hawa"
- "Ya aaz mn Ainy"
- "Sanaten wana ahayel feek"
- "Etmakhtary".
- "El Hob Gameel".
- "Monaya fi Korbak"
- "Abgad Hawaz".
- "Einy Betref", a duet with the Egyptian actor "Naguib AlRaihani".
Her movies include:
- Sayedat al-Qitar (Lady on the Train), 1953.
- Ward el gharam (Flowers of Love), 1952.
- Ghazal Al Banat (Flirtation of Girls), 1949.
- El Hawa wa el chabab (Love and Youth), 1948.
- Darbet el kadar (The Blow of Fate), 1947.
- Qalbi dalili (My Heart is my guide), 1947.
- Khatem Suleiman (Solomon's Ring), 1947.
- Leila bint el agnia (Leila, Daughter of the Rich), 1947.
- Leila bint el fukara (Leila, Daughter of the Poor), 1946.
- El Madi el maghoul (The Forgotten Past), 1946.
- Shadia al wadi (The Singer in the Valley), 1946.
- Leila fil zalam (Leila in the Shadows), 1944.
- Leila, bint al-madaress (Leila, the Schoolgirl), 1942.
- Laila, ghadet el camelia (Leila, Lady of the Camelias), 1942.
- Shuhaddaa el gharam (Romeo and Juliet), 1942.
- Leila, bint el rif (Leila, the Girl from the Country), 1941.
- Laila momtera (Stormy Night), 1940.
- Tahya el hub (Long Live Love), 1938.
