Zubaida Tharwat

Zubaida was born in Alexandria, Egypt on June 15, 1940 into an Egyptian family Her father, Ahmed Tharwat, was an Egyptian Navy officer. As a teenager she won a beauty contest in an Egyptian teen magazine which widely published her photograph and got her the attention of directors and producers. She studied at the Faculty of Law, Alexandria University.

She made her first film appearance in the 1956 film Dalila, alongside stars of the day Shadia and Abdel Halim Hafez. She went on to work in many other films with other famous actors such as Rushdy Abaza, Fatin Abdel Wahab, Youssef Wahbi, Kamal el-Shennawi, Soad Hosny and Omar Sharif. Tharwat appeared in such 1950s, 60’s and 70’s films until she retired from acting in the late 1980s. During her career, she was given many nicknames such as "The Pussycat of Arabic Cinema", "Magic Eyes" and "The Queen of Romance".

Tharwat had 3 siblings. She married five times and had four daughters with her second husband, Egyptian producer Sobhy Farahat. Tharwat died at the age of 76 after a long battle with cancer and aging-associated diseases. It has been noted that Tharwat had a physical resemblance to the current American actress Jennifer Lawrence.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Zubaida Tharwat.

• Zubaida Tharwat on IMDb
• (in Arabic) Zubaida Tharwat at the Arab Cinema Database