Hind Rustum

Biography

Hind Rostom was born in the neighborhood of Moharram Bek, Alexandria, Egypt on November 12, 1929. She was born to a middle-class Turkish father and an Egyptian mother. She started her career at the age of 16 with the film Azhaar wa Ashwak (Flowers and Thorns). Her first true success was in 1955 when the famous director Hassan Al Imam offered her a role in Banat el Lail (Women of the Night). Her famous films include Ibn Hamidu in 1957, Youssef Chahine's Bab El Hadid (Railway Station) with Farid Shawki in 1958, Salah Abu Seif's La Anam (Sleepless) with Faten Hamama, Omar Sharif, and Rushdy Abaza in 1958, Sira' fi al-Nil (Struggle in the Nile) with Omar Sharif and Rushdy Abaza in 1959, and Chafika el Koptia (Chafika the Coptic Girl) in 1963. Rostom was known as the queen of seduction in Egyptian cinema, the "Marilyn Monroe of the East (or of the Egyptian cinema)" She decided to retire acting in 1979 because she wanted the audience to remember her at her best. Rostom once more turned down an offer of one million Egyptian pounds for her biography in December 2002. The offer was made by an Egyptian satellite channel to portray her life as a drama series. She was asked to submit a complete history of her past achievements, and work experiences with prominent actors of the past, such as Farid Shawki, Youssef Chahine, Shukri Sarhan, and Shadia. The actress stated that she refused to sell her life as a means of entertainment and felt that her personal life was of her concern and no one else. Rostom made a statement when she turned down belly dancer Fifi Abdo's invitation to attend a party held in Hind Rostom's honour. In 2004, she refused to accept Egypt's State Merit Award in Arts, "The award came too late, I'm not placed on the shelf for them to pick me whenever they want, there's only one Hind Rostom in the middle east, and let's consider that the number of my generation star actresses isn't that big enough to ignore us, and also it's not appropriate to honor me after years of honoring people who are less than me, another point is that I also refuse to honor me before Shadia, she'd deserved it and she was a star longtime before me", Rostom commented