FILE - Abu Auf
CAIRO – 21 August 2020: July 1 marks the death anniversary of Egypt’s multi-talented artist Ezzat Abu Auf, who passed away in 2019.
A saying we inherited from our ancestors goes "The jack of all trades is the master of none", but legendary late Egyptian artist Ezzat Abu Auf proved that in some rare cases the jack could master them all.
Abu Auf was a brilliant multitalented artist; he was an actor, musician and head of Cairo International Film Festival for several rounds. He managed to leave his distinguished fingerprint in all the artistic fields he worked in.
Ezzat Ahmed Shafiq Abu Auf was born in Cairo in 1948 to an aristocratic family. He achieved a bachelor’s degree in medicine but his passion to art and music pushed him to join a rock band in the 1960s called Les Petits Chats, which also included famed Egyptian composer Omar Khairat, among others.
Abu Auf and his sisters founded a band in the early 1980s that was known as The Four M. Together, they performed roles in several theatrical performances.
His sister, Maha, later pursued an acting career disbanding The Four M. This caused Auf to focus on television and cinema projects.
In 1992, Abu Auf performed his first acting role in the Egyptian movie "Ice Cream in Gleem" alongside megastar Amr Diab. The film achieved a booming success and clearly showed Abu Auf's strong acting capabilities.
The late great actor repertoire houses about 100 films and a number of TV series. Abu Auf participated in a huge number of successful movies, including "Teyour el Zalam" (Birds of Darkness), "Bekheet and Adeela I", "Game Over", "Bobos", "La Tarago’a Wala Esteslam" (No Retreat or Surrender), in addition to the three-part comedy movie "Omar and Salma", with Tamer Hosny and Mai Izzedin.
He also participated in a number of successful Ramadan series, including "Om Kulthum", "Zel el-Rais" (The Shadow of the President), "El-Amma Nour" (Aunt Nour), “Hawanem Garden City” (Garden City Ladies), “Nisf Rabie Al-Akhar” (The other half of Rabie'' and “Ziziniyah”.
His last dramatic work was the screenplay “El-Ab el-Ro7y P II” (The God Father) directed by Tamer Hamza, and written by Hany Sarhan. The series starred Sawsan Badr, Ahmed Abdel Aziz, and Mido Adel, among others.
Abu Auf was the president of the 33rd edition of the Cairo International Film Festival and co-hosted Al-Qahira Al-Youm (Cairo Today), one of the most famous talk shows in Egypt and the Arab world.
In 2015, the great actor's health started to deteriorate on the aftermath of the death of his first wife Fatima, whom he used to love a lot. They shared a love story that people looked up to.
Abu Auf spoke that he suffered panic attacks and nervous breakdowns after the death of his love, Fatima. He previously said that her death was a great shock to him because he always believed that he will die first.
He later remarried to his manager Amira. Abu Auf last appeared in one of the advertisements broadcast in Ramadan 2019.
The love he gave throughout his career that spanned over three decades was crystal clear on the day of his death in July 1 ,2019 as sadness prevailed on his fans and colleagues who mourned him with emotional words that showed deep sadness for his departure and great love for his unique soul and great character.
Abu Auf’s death triggered an outpouring of tributes. “Today, Egypt has lost one of its great landmarks,” Ashraf Zaki, the head of the Egyptian Actors’ Syndicate previously said.
“My deep condolences for the death of dear Ezzat Abu Auf. May he rest in peace,” Egyptian megastar Amr Diab previously stated on his official Facebook page.
Without any exaggeration by his death Egypt has lost a one of a kind artist, the maestro of Egyptian art and the gentleman of Egyptian cinema.
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