Mohamed Kenawy (Cairo)
Samir Ghanem’s works drew smiles on faces and filled hearts with happiness, from the beginning of his career in the sixties of the last century until his death, as he captured the hearts of his Egyptian and Arab audiences, through dozens of comic roles that he performed on stage, in cinema and on television.
He became the owner of a comedy school, and he has his own flavor in improvisation, and the owner of the secret mixture in any work, as he built for himself a kingdom different from the children of his generation, to become the undisputed king of improvisation and laughter.
The son of the Assiut governorate in Upper Egypt did not want to be an extension of his father, Major General Youssef Ghanem, so he failed in the Police College and joined the College of Agriculture, and from there he decided to draw a special career, which he started artistically from the university stage.
Immediately upon his graduation, Samir formed the “Three Lights of Stage” troupe in the sixties with George Sidhom and guest Ahmed, and his journey began with them through Ramadan Fawazir in 1967, so that the troupe had the first lyrical and dramatic fawazir on Egyptian television, and it continued its progress over the course of 3 years, then It was discontinued due to the death of guest Ahmed in 1970. The Fawazir experience presented by Samir in the 1980s, with the character “Fatouta and Samoura”, remains the most ingrained in the viewers’ memory.
Ghanem starred in TV dramas, and achieved great success through several series, including: “The Story of Mizo”, “How to Lose a Million Pounds”, “The League Champion”, “The Hunter and Love”, “The Search for Happiness” and “Captain Judeh”.
In the 1990s, he presented several other dramatic works, including “The Clock Beats,” “Tales of a Thousand and One Nights,” “The Good Husbands,” “Temporarily Suspended from Service,” and “Dreams Deferred,” up to “Hidden Worlds,” which he returned to. In it to stand in front of Adel Imam in 2018.
Ghanem also participated in his two daughters, Donia and Amy, in the series “Lahfa, Lala Land, Nelly and Sherhan, Azmy and Ashjan,” the latest of which was “Badal Al-Hadota 3” in 2019.
As for his most famous plays, they are “Professor Mazzika, Welcome Doctor, The Married Couples, Juha Rules the City, Fares and Bani Khayban, Bahloul in Istanbul, My Wife is a Gang Leader,” while the play “Al-Zahr When Playing” was his last theatrical performance in 2020.
And in the cinema, he presented “rioters, warm embraces, some go to the authorized twice, they steal rabbits,” and so on, as he appeared in his true personality in the movie “The Khawaja Knot” in 2018.
He died on May 20, 2021, due to infection with the Corona virus.
