Cairo: Veteran Egyptian actress Nadia Lutfy died Tuesday at the age of 83 after a long struggle with illness.
The Egyptian Actors Syndicate announced the death of the Egyptian star through its official Facebook page.
Paula Shafik, better known as Nadia Lotfy, was a retired Egyptian actress. She is the daughter of an Egyptian accountant and a Polish mother. In her prime, she was one of the most popular actresses during the final phase of Egyptian cinema's "Golden Age".
Lotfy 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" (Insomnia) with Hamama playing a wilful teen who destroys her father's marriage.
With her fresh name, the young actress was spotted by director Ramsis Naguib and she took her first role in a modest, black & white drama, “Soultan” (Sultan) in 1958, according to Egypt Today.
Her second picture was a smaller role in one of the landmarks of its time, “Cairo Station”. In 1963, she played a woman warrior of the Crusade era, donning full armour to go into battle against her Christian-Arab lover, in “Naser Salah el Dine” (occasionally shown on US TV as Saladin and the Great Crusades).
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