Suad Mikkawi was nicknamed “the sound of spring”. It is now some forty days since she died, leaving behind more than 500 songs registered on the Egyptian Broadcasting Archive. The song that placed her on the threshold of fame was her Sallim Alayya (Say Hello!), sung in the 1940s film Laila Bint al-Aghniya (Laila, Daughter of the Wealthy Family) which starred Egypt’s then most popular singer-actress Laila Murad.
Mikkawi sang duets with the male singers of the time, Ismail Yassin, Shokuku and Karem Mahmoud. She took supporting roles in films in the 1950s and 60s, as in Asmar wa Gamil (Dark and Beautiful), Shamshoun al-Gabbar (Samson the Great), Hadret al-Muhtaram (The Respectable) and Naharak Saïd (Have a Good Day).
Mikkawi’s career took off at a time when competition between divas was at its peak, especially with the commanding voices of Umm-Kolthoum, Asmahan and Laila Murad. Even though she managed to carve herself a cherished niche on the singing scene, Mikkawi was never accorded her fair share of recognition. However, her songs are today appreciated as works of undeniably elevated artistic quality and purely oriental musical features. Mikkawi gave up singing in the 1990s.
Reuters was not quite fair to Mikkawi when she died; first, by quoting her age as seventy whereas she was nearly eighty, and second by rating her as a monologue singer although she sang much more serious music. Egypt’s “singer of the generation” Muhammad Abdel-Wahab chose her to star in Balad al-Mahboub (Land of the Beloved) in which she sang two of her masterpieces Qaloul Bayaad Ahla Wallal Samaar Ahla (Which is prettier, the fair or the dark) and Suobt Aleik (You were Sorry for Me). Friends of Abdel-Wahab used to say that the latter was one of his favourite songs and he would ask her to sing it whenever they met.
Mikkawi, like many other renowned oriental singers—Ahlam, Huriya Hassan and Esmat Abdel-Halim—gave up singing because of the increasing public disinterest in oriental musical. It was a great tribute to her singing, however, to be asked to sing Salah Jahin’s and Sayed Mikkawi’s—who was no relative despite the name—lyrics in the 1960s masterpiece folk puppet show al-Leila al-Kabira (The Grand Night). The show has become one of the classics of Egyptian music, and was recently turned into a ballet which invariably plays to a full house at no less a venue than the Cairo Opera House.
Mikkawi was three times married but leaves no children.
Zizi Mustafa took up acting when she was 14; her first role was in Bein al-Sama wal-Ard (Between Heaven and Earth) about a group of people trapped in an elevator and threatened with suffocation. One year later she played the memorable role of the quiet adolescent who, out of the desperation of unrequited love, decides to commit suicide in al-Murahiqaat (The Teenagers). Her delicate features and soft voice helped cast her as the romantic heroine, giving her a firm footing on the silver screen. Mustafa’s first leading role was in al-Bustagy (The Postman) in 1968 in which she played the young woman whose urgent letter never reaches her lover because the postman, whose hobby it was to read the letters before he delivered them, accidentally pours tea on the letter. During the 1970s and 80s Mustafa played many roles, several of them depicting critical social issues. Among the most prominent were her roles in Banat fil-Gamea (College Girls), al-Asheqaat (The Lovers), Zawgat Ragul Muhhhim (Wife of an Important Man), Zawgti wal-Kalb (My Wife and the Dog), and Intabihu ayuhal-Saada (Attention, Gentlemen). Mahattat Masr (Cairo Railway station) was one of Mustafa’s last films; she played the role of a mother.
Mustafa acted some unforgettable roles on TV. She starred in My Dear Sons, Thank You, Hilmiya Nights, Man in the Age of Globalisation, Rayya and Sakina, Public Opinion Case, and her latest, which was screened last Ramadan, was the hilarious mother-in-law in A Man and Six Women
Zizi Mustafa was born Zeinab Mustafa Nasr in 1945, and was raised in a family that loves music and theatre. She married three times, the last in 1982 to Yusry Mustafa who is also an actor. She died last week, childless, of a stroke.