Hours ago, the great artist Salah Al-Saadani completed his journey in life, to enjoy another life, in which there were no grudges or rumours. In his last years, Al-Saadani chose to look at us from afar, content to contemplate life, after he was the hero of life.
The overwhelming presence of Salah Al-Saadani in our lives was accompanied by the presence of the television set in the Egyptian home, and the state was keen for the middle class to acquire it, through the installment system that it was offering in many companies, so that the message would reach the largest segment of Egyptians.
Al-Saadani is considered in this field to be one of the builders, in the literary and literal sense of the word builders. These builders used to climb to the studio via wooden scaffolding, because the Maspero building, which was officially opened on July 21, 1960, was still under construction in the first years of program broadcasting, and needed fitness. A superior physique just to enter the studio, not to mention an iron memory for memorization, as well as the speed in changing clothes from one scene to another, while possessing a quick wit and an exceptional talent to overcome any lapse in filming or performance. Salah was mentally and physically qualified for all of this.
At that time, we were not dealing with the art of montage. It was not a technique that was used, and in the event of a mistake, the entire scene would be repeated. Salah Al-Saadani told me: All the old directors were keen to have one of the three cameras with which they were filming the scene point upwards, especially in serials that Its events take place in the countryside, and there is a window, in the décor, that might prolong that shot, if the motive for it was to fix a mistake, change clothes, or add a piece of décor, and the spectator believes that the director means that there is something coming from the window, and nothing usually comes from the window.
What Al-Saadani achieved at the beginning of his career, in the early sixties, was not achieved by any other artist. All of Egypt became a mourning pavilion when the series “Don’t Put Out the Sun” directed by Nour Al-Demerdash was shown in 1965, which was re-presented about 7 years ago, with the vision of Muhammad Shaker Khudair, when he passed away. Salah Al-Saadani, within the events of the first series, due to the public’s excessive love for Salah, he became a son of the Egyptian family, and the sadness for him was deep, after he touched the hearts of the people, and newspapers came out the next morning offering condolences to the Egyptians and reporting what happened to them.
The production companies were waiting for him to become the next screen boy before everyone else. Many details intersected to keep him away from the cinematic lead, to match his status as a television star. However, after Suleiman Al-Ghanem’s role at the end of the eighties, in “Layali Al-Helmiya,” he then became the undisputed mayor of television drama.
Salah Al-Saadani told me that the late director Atef Al-Tayeb, who was the most faithful of his generation in Salah’s talent, partnered with him to star in the film “A File in Arts.” Among the films for which he was nominated was “The Escape,” directed by Atef Al-Tayeb. Salah read the script and was happy with it, especially since The first to present Ahmed Zaki and Saeed Saleh to producer Samir Khafaja to assign him his first role in “Hello Shalabi.” He also meant Salah when he apologized for not participating in the starring role in the play “School of Troubles.” He nominated Ahmed Zaki as his replacement in the role of “Ahmed the Poet.” At the time, Salah was conducting rehearsals for an international play starring the National Theater, and Salah laughed and said to me: “No one now remembers that play, including me, while (The Rioters) has entered history.”
When I asked him: Why did he apologize for the movie “The Escape,” directed by Atef Al-Tayeb? He answered me: Ahmed Zaki intervened and asked to rewrite the script, and when I read it, I did not find myself in the role, which was then played by Abdulaziz Makhyoun. Salah is one of the greatest storytellers in our Arab world. He took this characteristic from his brother, the great writer Mahmoud Al-Saadani. I returned to my archives, to find before me what I imagine was the longest dialogue with Salah that I conducted with him about 15 years ago. In this space, of course, it is impossible for me to convey it to you, but it is okay to We take some nuggets. You can simply see in the folds of his opinions the Nasserite orientation of Salah, which he never left. No matter how much there was criticism of Abdel Nasser’s time, and the suppression of freedoms we experienced, he personally suffered from it, but all of that never affected Salah’s political orientation.
He is never ashamed to mention the years of suffering. He told me, for example, that he borrowed a shirt, because he did not have a new and fashionable one, to wear while he was going to television to meet a director. The journalist Farida Al-Shoubashi saved the situation and loaned him the shirt of one of her brothers, his firm conviction that the great pillars of television are in directing. They are Nour Al-Demerdash, Muhammad Fadel, Yahya Al-Alami, Ismail Abdel-Hafez, and Ibrahim Al-Sahn, and the great writers Waheed Hamed, Osama Anwar Okasha, and Mahfouz Abdel-Rahman, and the creative actors, Sanaa Jamil, Souad Hosni, Mohsen Tawfiq, Adel Imam, Ahmed Zaki, Al-Dhaif Ahmed, Suhair Al-Babli, and Sherihan, but the success that Adel Imam achieved was not Anyone can reach him, whether Youssef Wehbe, Naguib Al-Rihani, Ismail Yassin, or Farid Shawqi.
Adel is a lifelong friend and has remained a lifelong friend for him, after they got to know each other in the College of Agriculture, where Adel was two or three years ahead of him, and they met in the acting team, and he carried the banner after Adel Imam graduated.
I asked him about what happens in the drama after the spread of satellite channels. He told me: “This is called (the grocery law). The issue is not just money. Everyone has become subject to the star because of the advertisements. Before the beginning of satellite channels, we were addicted to the genius achieved by Osama Okasha and Ismail Abdel Hafez (Layali Al-Helmeya), and he was Yahya. Al-Alami completed with Saleh Morsi the great “Raafat Al-Hagan” trilogy…and these works are the highest in stature and value in the history of television in the Arab nation.”
I asked him about the situation in his life that made him angry and left a deep wound? He told me: “It is not a wound, but a meaning that has remained with me until now, and I often reflect on it, which is that we all pay the price, and we should not get angry when the time comes to pay the account.” He added: “They deleted my name from the credits of the movie (The Earth) because they were angry with my big brother.” Mahmoud Al-Saadani,” he continued, saying that Mahmoud Al-Saadani felt that he had caused harm to him, while Salah was always proud that he was Mahmoud Al-Saadani’s brother, and he did not feel for a single moment that he was being punished morally because of his brother, as they put him on the blacklist at the beginning of Anwar Sadat’s time. It was impossible to nominate him for any artistic work. Samir Khafaja only hired him to work as an administrator in the “United Artists” band, in order to provide him with a salary to live on, while Salah does not hate anything in the world as much as he hates management.
I asked him: How do you choose your works? He answered me: I read 30 series to choose one, and yet I often have to rewrite my role myself.
He added: “We are one Arab nation. Yes, I am Egyptian, but my audience is the Arab nation. Egypt’s door is open to all people. Oh Lord, all Arabs and all Arab actors and directors work here in Egypt. Whoever fears the presence of an Arab artist will be shot.”
We have nothing left of the remnants of Arab unity except the Union of Arab Lawyers, the Union of Arab Journalists, the Union of Arab Artists, the Union of Arab Traders of Tarshi, and the Union of Arab Khaybin!
Salah Al-Saadani has purebred genes running in his blood, and is mainly motivated by the intellectual position he adopts in the work before he signs up to participate in it.
Salah’s journey in this world did not end with his eighty-one years. It is a journey extended by his giving, which is capable of crossing all barriers, even the barrier of death!
* according to “Egyptian today”
Disclaimer: All published articles represent the opinion of their authors only.
