Comic actor Hassan Fayek was born Hassan Fayek Muhammad El-Kholy on 7 January 1898, and passed away on 14 September 1980.
This simple man, who received little education, played a patriotic role during one of the most turbulent periods in Egypt s political history, by delivering witty limericks as a one-man comedian in order to rouse enthusiasm among demonstrators during the 1919 revolution against the British occupation.
This comedian, who appeared at the time of Egypt s acting giants, perhaps equalled them in many ways at the beginning.
His unique quality was his seemingly childish laughter and innocent astonishment, and it was through these qualities that he created a bridge between himself and his audience.
Like other members of his generation, Fayek came to the screen from the theatre, after years of both hardship and fame. However, he is also indebted, like them, to the silver screen for the glory he achieved.
Fayek started acting on stage in 1914, and went on to later act in many films. He stopped, or almost stopped acting, when television began broadcasting in Egypt at the beginning of the 1960s.
When he wanted to resume his theatrical activity on television, he was struck by physical paralysis, and remained so for the last 15 years of his life.
Fayek s beginnings were at the hands of his intimate foe, Youssef Wahbi, the star and producer of Sons of Aristocrats (1932), who convinced Mohammed Karim, the film s director, to give a role to Fayek.
Although there is no existing copy of Sons of Aristocrats, the documents available point to this role as a rather humble and almost unnoticeable start.
This wasn t just because of the presence of Wahbi and Serag Mounir as the film s stars, but also because Fayek did not capitalise on this opportunity and waited three years for his next film role.
His subsequent film came after he had joined El-Rihani s theatre company and that film, Antar Effendi (1935), was in the hands of his old friend and company colleague Stéphane Rosti.
Fayek s real beginning, however was to come in the subsequent year, with El-Rihani s film His Highness Wants to Marry, directed by Alexander Farkas. The film boosted his popularity among those who couldn t go to the theatre, especially in the provinces far away from Cairo.
He then moved to another film titled Abou-Zarifa in the same year which was directed by Alvize Orfanelli, and then in 1937 he played his first important and prominent role in The Chant of Hope, which starred Umm-Kalthoum, Zaki Tuleimat, and was directed by Ahmed Badrkhan.
During his cinematic cinema, Fayek was mainly confined to two types of roles.
The first one, which he is most famous for, was moulded by El-Rihani and the scriptwriter Badie Khairy, and is that of a weakling, a pliant person. It is best exemplified by his role as Anwar Wagdi s brother in Fatma (1947), directed by Badrkhan.
The second type was totally different, and that was the shrewd man, always seeking to gain the biggest amount of benefit, clinging to life and searching only for his self-interest. Two clear examples for this type are The Light of My Eyes (1954), directed by Hussein Fawzi, and My Prince Charming (1957), by Helmy Rafla. In both, he was a cunning man looking for wealth but within a comedic frame.
Fayek remained trapped in these types of roles for many years, although there were some variations as he aged, such as his roles in Street of Love (1958), directed by Ezzel-Dine Zulfikar, and Sukkar Hanem (1960) by El-Sayed Bedeir.
Even when he became paralysed after releasing The Reason and the Money (1965), directed by Abbas Kamel, he had three films yet to be released. They were Memoirs of a Female Student, directed by Ali Beheiri, which was released in the same year; The Female Idol (1967), by Helmy Rafla; and Mum s Fiancé (1971), by Fateen Abdel-Wahab, which came seven years after his paralysis.
Fayek had two experiences as a leading actor. The first was in 1954 when director Fouad El-Gazayerli adapted Naguib El-Rihani s play Hassan, Morcos and Cohen for the cinema.
Fayek reprised the role of Abbas he had played on stage, in which he had been remarkably successful. He was similarly successful before in the role of Bunduq Abu Ghazala, star of the play Qaraqush s Rule, also by El-Rihani.
In spite of El-Rihani s influence on all the roles he performed, whether on stage or in cinema – just as El-Rihani would influence the actors who would later play the same roles, such as Farid Shawqi, Fouad El-Mohandes, Abu-Bakr Ezzat and even Mohammed Sobhi in the play The Lady s Game -- Fayek was the only one who could free himself from his master s overwhelming influence.
His performance when he played Abbas in Hassan, Morcos and Cohen, revealed Fayek s own soul and his way of performing, even when he was uttering El-Rihani s words.
The Reason and the Money was released on 1 February 1965 while its star was lying paralysed in an Italian hospital. Fayek played the role of both Sultan Caramel and his sibling Bechamel, who was driven by the love of power and money to conspire and depose his sultan brother.
It isn t necessarily right to say that Fayek would have been showered with other leading man roles after this film, if he hadn t been paralysed. This film was an exceptional experience that can t be used as a rule, especially as the man was well over 65, and it is hard to imagine a man who had not been a leading man in his prime becoming so at that age.
Whether Fayek was playing a weakling or a cunning man with ulterior motives, whether he was the leading man or a supporting actor, his wide popularity was drawn from his famous laugh, a feature of every role, to the extent that his fans called him “the one with the charming laugh.”
