Rushdy Saeed Baghdadi Abaza (Arabic: رشدي سعيد بغدادي أباظة, romanized: Rushdī Saʿid Baghdādī ʾAbāẓah; 3 August 1926 – 27 July 1980) was an Egyptian film and television actor. He was considered one of the most charming actors in the Egyptian film industry and is one of the most famous. He died of brain cancer at the age of 53.
Rushdy Abaza is "widely considered one of the greatest names in the history of Arab cinema", with no less than 150 movies to his name.
Rushdy Abaza was born in Sharqia, Egypt, to an Italian mother, Teresa Luigi, and an Egyptian father, Saïd Abaza, belonging to one of Egypt's most well-known families, the Abaza family, who are of maternal-Circassian heritage. He had difficulty at the start because "[acting] was not allowed in ...[his] aristocratic family...and his father and the entire Abaza family strongly objected ...[but] he insisted."
He is the best known Abaza family member and a household name in the Arab world due to the number of films he acted in that remain popular throughout the Arab world.
Rushdy attended school at Collège Saint Marc in Alexandria. Through his father's side he had three half-sisters, Ragaa, Mounira, Zeinab and one half-brother, Fekri (an actor). Through his mother's side, he had one half-brother, Hamed. His only child is a daughter, Qismat (Eismat).
Tahiya Karioka, Egyptian actress and dancer
Barbara, American mother of his only child, Qismat
Samia Gamal, famous Egyptian dancer (his longest marriage)
He appeared in more than 100 films from 1948 until 1980; the year of his death.
List of Egyptian films of the 1960s
Daoud, Abd el Ghani. (1997). Madâres el Adâ'’ el Tamthîlî fî târîkh el Cinema el Misreyah. Cairo: el Hay’a el ‘Ama li Qosour el Thaqâfah.
Kassem, Mahmoud. Mawsou‘at el Momathel fi-l-Cinema el ‘Arabiya. Cairo.
Labib, Fomil. (1973). Nougoum ‘Areftahom. Cairo: Ketab el Helal.
Ramzi, Kamal. (1997). Nogoum el Cinema el Misreyah: el Gawhar we-l-Aqni’a. Cairo: The Supreme Council for Culture.
Wassef, Magda. (1995). Egypte: 100 ans de Cinéma. Paris: Institut du Monde Arabe (IMA)
Rushdi Abaza on Egyptian State Information Service Site