Even in these difficult, fragile times for my beloved adopted country, Egypt, some things give me hope. One of them is the still-flourishing career of this remarkable creature, the durable diva of the Nile Miss Nabila Ebeid. She's just finished starrring - and alongside the redoubtable Miss Fifi Abdou, no less - in a not-unDynasty-like Ramadan soap opera that offered plenty of opportunities for what these two ladies do best: spats, tantrums, hairpulling, long lingering closeups, kittenish reconciliations with scorned lovers, telephone scenes, slapping, and even the occasion dance bit.
I can't help thinking that as long as the Egyptian popular imagination is seized with glamour at the very high level set by Miss Ebeid and her colleagues, the joyless clerics and their dreary hordes will at best enjoy a temporary vogue. I certainly hope so, as I've already let Mr. Muscato know that we will certainly be revisiting our retirement plans at the first hint that the breweries are closing.
La Ebeid, by the bye, got her start back when Omar Sharif was still purely a domestic product, and she's been going strong ever since. I had the great good fortune to meet her at a rather swank dinner nearly a decade ago, and it's clear that in the interval she's had a certain amount of highly successful general maintenance. The lady, you see, admits to 67, which in Arab-megastar years likely means she's 75 if she's a day...
75? My god! The air-brushing department must have employed LaToya Jackson's people in order to get her to look that strange... Jx
ReplyDeletePS I miss Egyptian "entertainment" TV. I recall it very well from my (two) visits to Luxor.
Well, like I said, it's really pretty good work. WIth the right lighting and angles, it's almost as convincing on film as it is in stills. She doesn't look a whole lot like the woman she was 40 or even 10 years ago, granted, but maybe that oughtn't be the goal of this kind of of wholesale update...
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