Biography

Zaki Abdel Wahab (February 18, 1961 - March 20, 2022) was an Egyptian actor and film director. He was the son of renowned Egyptian singer Laila Mourad and director Fatin Abdel Wahab. He graduated from the Directing Department of the Cairo Higher Institute of Cinema in 1983. Abdel Wahab worked as a second assistant director in the movie People on the Top (1981) and as an assistant director in many of Youssef Chahine's films, including The Sixth Day (1986), in which he made his debut as an actor. He also acted in Alexandria Again and Forever (1989), I Love Cinema (2004), and starred in Yousry Nasrallah's Mercedes (1993). In 1996, Zaki directed his feature film Romantica, which was a biography of his life. He was the location manager of American films and miniseries shot in Egypt such as Mysteries of Egypt (1998) and The Mummy Returns (2001). Zaki married actress Soad Hosny in 1981 after she separated from the film director Ali Badrakhan. However, they separated after only a few months of marriage, and he stated in more than one interview that the reason was his mother's opposition. He died in 2022 after a battle with lung cancer.