The “laughter icon” from the seventies of the last century, and the owner of a calm mood in the art world and the search for happiness without looking at money, and a lover of football and Al-Ahly club more than caring for something else, he liked to sit in cafes and live the life of tramps as he used to call himself, so the public and the marginalized loved him As one of them and he has already decided not to abandon them, he is the artist Saeed Saleh who passed away on this first day of August 2014.
A third of Egyptian films
"Egyptian cinema has produced 1,500 films, one third of which is my share," said Saeed Saleh about his artistic career, which includes dozens of films and plays.
Saeed Saleh was born in 1938. Among his most famous films are “Peace, my friend,” “The Cat is a Lion’s Origin,” “424,” “The Milky Way,” “Halfoot,” “At the Wazir’s Gate,” “The Visitor of Dawn,” and “The Suspicious.” His most famous theatrical works were "The School of Rioters", "The Children Are Growing", "Al-Baba'a", "Kablon", "Sharm Bram", "Al-Shahatin" and "Tasfar Al-Safar". And "The Challenge Game" and "The Fall in Beersheba".
The other side of Saeed Saleh
The late Saeed Saleh, or “Sultan,” as he was nicknamed in his most famous plays, “The Children Are Growing Up,” was one of the artists who were known for their strong love of art, but also the desire to master work and participate in photography in a good mood, and he saw that cinema is what puts him in this mood, Because her shooting hours are less and acting needs a good mood.
Saleh’s choices and convictions prompted him to refuse to embody the role of Mayor Suleiman Ghanem in the series “Layali Al Helmiya”, because he did not want to drain himself in the drama. He was playing the role of someone who has a daughter and dies at the end of the work, and Saeed Saleh had a daughter and was afraid that he would actually die in the real world, so he apologized for the film, so the role went to Salah Qabil instead.
Among the other signs that expressed the personality of the late Saeed Saleh, who had a great heart and mind and wit, was his comment on the period of his stay in a prison, when he confirmed that he was happy in prison, and said, “God wanted to test me, and I felt people’s love for me, and I was busy inside the prison.” I solve problems, pray and read the Qur’an, and memorize it, so I asked God to draw close to Him and He responded to me.”
The three friends
The life of the late Saeed Saleh had a special relationship with two friends who were not separated by the producers for a long time, and either of them was paid instead of the other without sadness or artistic jealousy between them, and the matter here is related to Salah Al-Saadani and Adel Imam.
The fame of Saeed Saleh and Adel Imam was together, and the "marginalized comedians" confirmed in one of the television interviews that there was no kind of jealousy between them and they were encouraging each other on stage.
This was confirmed by Saeed Saleh's daughter, Hind, who went out to announce the continuation of her relationship with leader Adel Imam, who constantly reassures her, which is the opposite of the rumors that were spreading about the relationship of Adel Imam and Saeed Saleh.
As for the relationship of the late artist Salah Al-Saadani, he said about her that they are siblings that one mother did not give birth to, and that their name was associated a lot at the beginning of their artistic career, as Saeed Saleh knew that he was one of the artists who made good relations with everyone.
Political and moody prison
Saeed Saleh was imprisoned 3 times during his life, the first of which was because of a work of art, and he was the first artist to be sentenced because of a work of art, as he called himself “the king of deviation from the text”, which caused his imprisonment in 1983 when he cursed on the stage He was sentenced to 17 days pending investigation and then released.
This work spread to some rumors, that he was imprisoned because of a political sentence that was said to ridicule the Egyptian presidents in the play “A game called money”, when he said in the Egyptian colloquial “My mother was married 3 times, the first we ate meat and the second taught us cheating, and the third is neither frustrating nor bench”, and raised the issue at the time. There was widespread controversy in the artistic and media circles, and he was eventually acquitted.
He was imprisoned the second time in 1991 in a fabricated drug case and was acquitted for insufficient evidence, and in 1996, he was accused of the same charge again and imprisoned for a year and a fine of 10,000 pounds.
The singer who is not recognized
Saeed Saleh’s first ambition was to be a singer and he actually applied to the Syndicate of Musical Professions. He used to listen and did not know the rules and basics of composing, and for this he was rejected, according to composer Helmy Bakr, who was at the time a member of the Syndicate’s listening committee.
Saeed Saleh composed and performed many songs in his cinematic and theatrical works, which were loved by the audience, including "On the Name of Egypt", "We are the day, what", "Forbidden to travel" and "All day long".
With this long artistic history, Saeed Saleh ended his career by appearing in a number of works as a guest of honor, most notably with Adel Imam in the movie "Zheimer", the last of which was the movie "Tired and Shadia" in 2013.
In his television interviews, Saeed Saleh wished that he would die standing on his feet, and not be ill.
Perhaps his wish came true, as he did not suffer long from illness, as he died on August 1, 2014, after suffering a heart attack, leaving behind a great artistic legacy that neither artistic history nor the public can overlook.