- Born
- Died
- Birth nameBadawiya Mohamed Karim Ali Sayed
- Her parents did not approve of her becoming a belly dancer, because it was frowned upon in the Islam faith. She gave up dancing in 1963 but as late as the mid-1980's ran her own theater in Cairo, helping to write, choose plays, directing, and producing. She took to wearing the Islamic headscarf before retiring completely from public view 13 years ago. Though the hold of fundamentalist Islam on Egyptian society has virtually wiped out public manifestations of her art, she was in the end granted the official approval her parents withheld, as the Egyptian Culture Minister, Farouk Hosni, led her funeral procession. The stuff of legend, she married 14 different husbands and once slapped King Farouk when he threw an ice cube down her dress. She had roles in more than 300 movies and television shows.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Michael Suhar
- SpousesMuhammad Sultan Basha(1940 - ?) (divorced)Antwan Essa(1939 - 1940) (divorced)Fayez Halawa (divorced)Rushdi Abazah (divorced)Hussain Aakef (divorced)Mustafa Kamal Sedqi(? - 1956) (divorced)Ahmed Salem (divorced)Fatin Abdulwahhab (divorced)Levy (divorced)Hassan Hussain (divorced)Muharram Fuad (divorced)Abdulmoniem Alkhadim(? - 1956) (divorced)Muhammad Hassan (divorced)Hassan Abdulsalam (her death)Ahmad Thu Al Faqqar Sabry (divorced)
- Although Islam frowns on belly dancing, Egyptian Culture Minister, Farouk Hosni, led her funeral procession. She had married 14 different husbands among them an American army officer whom she met during World War II, an actor and a prominent playwright. When another great Egyptian belly dancer, Samia Gamal, died in 1994, her funeral was officially ignored. Has an adopted daughter, Atiyat Allah.
- Aunt of actress Ragaa el-Gedawy (Ismailia, 6 September 1934- 5 July 2020, Ismailia).
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