Ahmed Zaki: From Playing Losers to Achieving Stardom

by Walid El Khachab

Ahmed Zaki is one of the many legendary figures of Egyptian cinema. During his lifetime (1949–2005), he reached the status of icon in Arab culture, since he played the roles of some of the key figures of these cultures, such as both presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat and singer Abdel Halim Hafez. In star studies, the emergence of a star is often interpreted as the sign of an era coming into being: according to Edgar Morin, Marilyn Monroe gave birth to a new liberated feminity that emerged in the second half of the 20th century (1). Walter Armbrust believes that Farid Shawqi, the popular male star of Egyptian cinema in the 1950s and 1960s, is the token of masculinity par excellence in the early Nasser era (2). Ahmed Zaki’s career can also be understood within the frame of such an interpretation. But Zaki is not just one unique figure that incarnates a single historical role: there are at least three moments in the career of the “Black Tiger” that in turn are linked to three eras in the history of Egyptian cinema and society: the post-modern era inaugurated by the early 1970s play Madrasat al-Mushaghibin (The School of Hooligans), the 1980s neorealism period, and the era of the nostalgic filmic biographies of modern cultural and political icons produced since the late 1990s.

Schools and Rebels
Madrasat al-Mushaghibin, in which Ahmad Zaki played his first principal role, is more than an ordinary commercial play that dominated the Cairo stage in the early 1970s, it is one of the cultural products that mark the beginning of the Arab post-modern era. As Paul de Man argues, the trope of the Father’s murder is central to radical supporters of modernity: one “murders” tradition in order to build modernity (3). But in the context of Arab cultures, it was the Father—the enlightened despot such as Nasser—who enforced modernization in social and political institutions. Thus, radical disenchantment with such incarnations of Arab modernity amounts to the critique of major legitimization narratives—such as those of modernity and nationalism—that is seminal to Jean-François Lyotard’s definition of the post-modern.

The students of the “school of hooligans” acted out on stage the murder of the Father figure, which encompasses all patriarchal institutions, including family, the education system and the government. Performing in the aftermath of the literal death of the Father of modern Arab societies (that is, Nasser) and three years after the Arab defeat in the 1967 war, which put an end to the Arab nationalistic mega-narrative, the actors were so impressive that most of them went on to become stage or cinema stars in Egypt. Adel Imam, for instance, has dominated comic cinema (and on stage) for more than 25 years; Said Saleh and Younes Shalabi were popular on stage for 20 years.

The influence of al-Mushaghibin was so strong that certain expressions in today’s Egyptian dialect stem directly from that play. Adel Imam’s character retorts to his father the memorable interjection translatable as, “Because you are my father, you think you have the right to steal me?” Said Saleh improvised an expression that today is used to describe an aphasic person: “The phone is unable to dial the number!” Younes Shalabi is known for having invented the now famous, “Yippee! My father burned!” These actors’ irreverence vis-à-vis the authority figure, especially that of the paterfamilias, clearly contributed to their long-term success.

Although he was sitting on the same bench, Ahmed Zaki had to wait for another decade before becoming a star himself. His own role in Madrasat al-Mushagibin was not one of a rebel. Instead, he played a young man perfectly willing to submit to law and order. He respects the symbols of authority, refrains from indulging in “reprehensible” practices (tobacco, alcohol, flirting with girls, etc.) and works hard at school. His eventual failure at school is due to the institution’s inability to recognize his special talent as a poet—a situation that changes when a new, modern-spirited teacher joins the staff. In short, his character did not draw attention because it was one of a conformist, especially when compared to the play’s other characters, who expressed the outrage of Arab youth in the early 1970s. Zaki was reproducing the traditional melodramatic archetype of victimized youth; furthermore, his character was an orphan, so he literally had no father against whom he could rebel.

Neorealism and New realities
Ahmed Zaki’s consecration in cinema, at least in terms of critical appreciation, came with the beginning of Egyptian neorealism. He incarnates this type of cinema born in 1981, according to the consensus of historians. He played the taxi driver in Tayer ‘ala al-Tariq (A Bird on the Road, 1981), by Mohamed Khan, the journalist in Khairy Beshara’s Awwamah 70 (Barge Number 70, 1982), and the young government employee in Hubb fawq Habadat al-Ahram (Love on the Pyramids Plateau, 1984), directed by Atef al-Tayeb and adapted from a short story by Naguib Mahfouz.

Yet he confirmed his status as a star thanks only to a successful film that mixes realist aesthetics and an “imported” commercial sensibility. In 1984’s Al Nimr Al Aswad (The Black Tiger), he plays an Egyptian immigrant to Germany who became a famous boxer. This film—which is among the last ones made by Atef Salem, an icon of Egyptian realism in the 1960s and 1970s—clearly “quoted” the Rocky cycle, the Hollywood films featuring Sylvester Stallone. At the heart of the narrative is the rise of a boxer who overcomes his modest social origins and establishes himself with a spectacular victory in an important fight. The editing and the framing of the training and fight scenes are obvious reproductions of the Rocky films. But the Egyptian film was perceived as realist because it was based on a true story and it had a “patriotic” social dimension: it was about an Egyptian fighting racial prejudice in Europe, thus establishing himself as a sportsman in a hostile environment. In any case, The Black Tiger’s fight scenes make it highly entertaining, and the film satisfied critics as well, thanks to its restrained reliance on pathos, compared with the traditional melodramatic trend.

But most importantly, the title of the film gave Ahmed Zaki his nickname, one that emphasized his ethnic difference. Physically, Ahmed Zaki stood apart from the majority of stars, with their sleek hair and fancy clothes, who had until then dominated the Egyptian “Nile-wood” cinema. His frizzy hair and dark skin, his Nubian features, his untidy clothes, simple and often casual, contrasted with the usual look and outfits of Arab stars. Because it was strikingly different from the dominant visual code of the time, Ahmed Zaki’s presence seemed “realistic” and his type closer to that of “real people.” Moreover, the characters he portrayed belong to disempowered social categories that were rarely at the center of a film narrative before 1981.

Although an icon of Egyptian cinematographic neorealism, Ahmed Zaki did not appear in the two films that gave birth to that cinematic trend. It was Nour El-Cherif, enfant terrible of Egyptian cinema of the 1970s, who starred in Sawaq al-Utubis (The Bus Driver, 1981) by Atef al-Tayeb and Ahl al-Qima (Upper Crust, 1981) by Ali Badrakhan . El-Cherif had the charm of a funny adolescent, slightly impertinent and quietly rebellious; he was handsome but not icy, and he often dressed informally. Yet it was Ahmed Zaki who radicalized the tendency to refuse the clothing of business executives and ban the suit in cinema, especially because the characters he played came from outside the usual middle class. In his films, Zaki often plays a marginalized character, whereas El-Cherif in the 1970s was just a rebel within his own middle class. The latter had the fair skin of typical Arab cinema stars, but Zaki set a precedent in a context where actors with Nubian features were entitled only to stereotyped characters belonging to subaltern social roles, such as doormen and butlers. The dissolution of the middle-class norm imposed by the Nasser era paved the way to new subcultures in the 1980s as well as to new types of masculine beauties, until then marginalized by the norm. Economic liberalization in the 1980s also decolonized the territory of stars’ looks (5). Yet, just as Sidney Poitier remained for a long time the sole African-American star in Hollywood, Ahmed Zaki has so far been the only star with Nubian features on the Egyptian screen.

Like Nour El-Cherif, Ahmed Zaki first gained a reputation on television. He masterfully played the role of Taha Hussein, the “dean of Arabic literature,” in al-Ayyam (The Book of Days (1979). However, the most socially revolutionary character Zaki played on TV was in the feature film Ana La Akzheb Wa Lakkini Atagammal (I Don’t Lie, I Embellish Myself), just before he moved on to movie stardom. In this special feature, Zaki perfectly embodies the schizophrenia prevailing in Egypt in a time when society was shifting from bureaucratic socialism to unregulated capitalism. At the university, his character is a brilliant, handsome man who draws the admiration of a young woman from high society; at home, he is a gravedigger in a poor popular neighborhood next to a cemetery, where he lives and dresses like any sub-proletarian. From this character on, the new type represented by Zaki was that of a young man crushed by the capitalist machine, disoriented because he is accustomed to a welfare state that distributes diplomas as well as jobs to its young university population.

The character he played from film to film allowed him to put a face on Egypt’s youth, who were striving against the devaluation of university diplomas and the reign of the nouveaux riches produced by the wild liberalization implemented by Sadat. At the same time, this generation was struggling with the upheavals of social values, due to the sudden shift from a state-oriented economy to an “open” economy (the policy of infitah, as Sadat called it), an economy that was deregulated with the state’s benediction. Alternatively, Zaki played the young man without a diploma or education who carved his own place in society to the best of his abilities, earning his living through the lucrative non-qualified professions in the Egypt of the 1970s and 1980s, such as driver, hairdresser, etc.

But unlike some other neorealist characters, Zaki’s were almost never anti-heroes. He was always the champion of the underprivileged. In Mohamed Khan’s A Bird on the Road, he plays a simple driver who challenges the authority of a rich and jealous husband who mistreats his own wife. As a hairdresser in Mu‘awwid ‘ala al-‘Asha’ (Date and Dinner, 1981), also by Khan, he again challenges a rich man and supports this man’s wife against all odds.

It was only in the late 1980s, when neorealism lost its momentum as a form of political and social critique, that Zaki played figures belonging to the dominant classes. The shift took place within neorealist cinema, in Mohammad Khan’s masterpiece, Zawjat Rajul Muhimm (The Wife of an Important Man, 1988). In that film, the champion of the poor is a woman, the wife of a ruthless policeman working in the state security department; she dares to oppose her violent husband and leave him, after he exceeds all limits in his professional and personal dealings with everyone around him. Ahmed Zaki plays the Sadatian megalomaniac policeman who firmly believes that, in the character’s own words, “officers rule the world.” Although a seminal critique of police brutality and state control under Sadat, and certainly a realistic expression of the socio-political situation of the time, this film represents a turning point in Ahmed Zaki’s career, in that it inaugurated a period in which the star made increasingly institutionalized choices in his roles. More and more, these roles tended to represent figures of power (one of the few exceptions was when he played, again in a Khan film, the marginal street-fighter hero in 1993’s Mr. Karate).

Playing Icons
Toward the end of the 20th century, Egyptian cinema and TV increasingly tended to produce nostalgic biographies of modern cultural and political icons. The “revival” attitude seems to be the ultimate resource for a cultural modernity unable to renew its energy, as it deals with the frenzy of constant upheavals in late global capitalism. Television productions revived Viceroy Ismail Pasha, father of modern urban Cairo, in Bawabat al-Halawani (The Halawani Gate, 1996); Umm Kulthoum, the legendary diva, in a series bearing her name (2000); and Hoda Sharawi (2005), the first “feminist” in Arab history. During the same period, cinema produced three major biographies, of presidents Nasser and Sadat and of singer Abdel Halim Hafez, all featuring Ahmad Zaki.

The last ten years of Zaki’s life saw much gossip about his supposed megalomania, allegedly the key motive for his impersonation—and occasional identification with—Gamal Abdel Nasser in Nasser 56 (1996), by Mohamed Fadel, Anwar Sadat in Mohamed Khan’s Ayyam al-Sadat (The Days of Sadat, 2001) and Abdel Halim Hafez in a film still in postproduction. The gossip is a typical example of the blurred boundaries between actor and character, but it is also proof that Zaki had reached the status of both an excellent actor and a popular star. It also illustrates the importance of a star in a cinema industry: Ahmed Zaki bears no physical resemblance to Nasser or to Hafez. Nevertheless, these grandiose projects could never have been produced if the leading role were not played by a living legend like Zaki.

In the last years of the 20th century, the star of neorealism became the product of an industry that strongly relies on stardom. The credibility of his interpretation of a character was not founded on the resemblance between the actor and the historical character he impersonated. Rather, it was based on economic feasibility: securing a star like Ahmed Zaki for a film is enough to guarantee success, even if conditions of mimetic realism are lacking. Credibility in the films in which Zaki plays Nasser or Hafez was based on one rationale: only a great actor (and star) can represent a major historical figure.

When he played the roles of great men, Ahmed Zaki proved more than once that he was a high-profile actor with an incomparable talent as an imitator. In the role of Nasser, Zaki proved to be extremely meticulous about the tiniest attitudes and gestures, to the extent that no film critic felt it was necessary to mention the obvious absence of physical resemblance between “al-Ra’is” and the star. Sharing the same large popularity seemed to fill any gap in resemblance between both men. The same could be said of Zaki’s interpretation of Sadat, to whom he bore a closer physical resemblance—one could even say that Zaki was more dignified than the real Sadat. This gave the character an aura consistent with the image of a historical leader, although the original historical figure’s manner was sometimes more comical than grave.

In any case, Ahmed Zaki achieved what many leaders have failed to do: he was unanimously acclaimed. He succeeded in the tour de force of playing with equal grace the two antinomic figures of modern Arab history: Nasser and Sadat. Each leader’s supporters are always in extreme opposition, but agree when it comes to recognizing the excellence of Zaki’s impersonation of Nasser and Sadat. His death following a long and painful disease—which reminds the audience of the last months in the life of Abdel Halim Hafez—has lent more pathos to the memory of Ahmed Zaki, and possibly secured immortality for this star, who passed away just after playing the character of Hafez, the emblematic figure of Arab romantic nationalism. Ahmed Zaki has not only joined the pantheon of Arab film stars but also reached, with the three leading figures of Arab cultures he impersonated, the status of an immortal.

Walid El Khachab is assistant professor at the Arabic program, Department of Classics, Modern Languages and Linguistics, Concordia University, Montreal.

1. Edgar Morin, Les stars (Paris: Seuil, 1972).
2. Walter Armbrust, “Farid Shauqi: Tough Guy, Family Man, Cinema Star,” in Imagined Masculinities (London: Saqi Books, 2000), 199–226.
3. Paul de Man, Blindness and Insight (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1983).
4. Some critics and historians consider the first neorealist Egyptian film to be Sawak al-Utubis; to others, this same trend, which they prefer to call New Egyptian Cinema, was inaugurated by Ahl al-Qima. Both films were produced in 1981. Cf. Ibrahim El Ariss, “Les enfants de Salah Abou Seif et de Coca Cola,” in Les cinémas arabes, CinémAction (Paris: Cerf, 1987); Samir Farid, al-Waqa’iyya al-Jadida fi al-Cinema al-Misriya (Neorealism in Egyptian Cinema) (Cairo: GEBO, 1992); and film critiques by Rafiq al-Sabbane in the Cairo weekly Al-Ahram Hebdo.
5. In the realm of Egyptian pop music, a similar phenomenon is observed in the 1980s. The outstanding rise of an artist born in the Nubian south, Mohamed Mounir, could be explained by the same reasons