Sabah

Sabah (which means morning in Arabic) was born in 1927 as Jeannette Gergi Fighali in Beirut, Lebanon. In confronting the Egyptian entertainment industry, I find myself quickly running out of superlatives. Therefore, I’ll just say that she was a great actress and a very prolific singer. She acted in 98 films, as well as 20 stage plays. She has released over 50 albums, and has 3,500 songs in her repertoire!

Her career started in the ’40s and she is still going strong at 81!

Her fans refer to her as Sabouha, or Shahroura, The Singing Bird. Her voice is lively and expressive, and she has been known to sustain a single note for over a minute when performing in the Lebanese’s Ataba style.

Sabah has been married a total of seven times! Her marriage to Naguib Shammas lasted five years; and she gave him a son, Sabah (the name can be used for either a girl or a boy). Next, she married a violinist, Anwar Mansy; this marriage ended after four years and resulted in the birth of a daughter, Hewayeda. Ahmed Farrag, an Egyptian television presenter, was her third husband. Abaza, an actor, was married to her for three days only; the marriage was declared invalid since he was already married and had not officially divorced his wife! The remaining three were: Joe Hammoud, Wassim Tabara, and Fadi Lubnan.

She would later say that all her husbands have taken advantage of her career. The love of her life turned out to be Joe Hammoud.

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