Faten Ahmed Hamama ( ; 27 May 1931 – 17 January 2015) was an Egyptian film and television actress and film producer. She was the first wife of Ezz El-Dine Zulficar. She made her screen debut in 1939, when she was only seven years old. Her earliest roles were minor, but her activity and gradual success helped to establish her as a distinguished Egyptian actress. Later revered as an icon in Egyptian cinema. In 1996, nine of the films she starred in were included in the Top hundred films in the history of Egyptian cinema by the cinema critics of Cairo International Film Festival. After a seven-year hiatus from acting, Hamama returned in 2000 in what was a much anticipated television series, Wageh El Amar (وجه القمر, Face of the Moon). Hamama substantially helped in improving the cinema industry in Egypt and emphasizing the importance of women in cinema and Egyptian society. In 2000, she was selected as Star of the Century by the Egyptian Writers and Critics organization. Early life and career Faten Hamama was born in 1931 to an Egyptian Muslim lower middle class family in Mansoura, Egypt (according to her birth certificate), but she claimed to have been born in the Abdin quarter of Cairo. She has an older brother, Mounir, a younger sister, Layla and a younger brother, Mazhar. Her aspiration for acting arose at an early age. When she was six years old, her father took her to the theater to see an Assia Dagher film; when the audience clapped for Assia, she told her father she felt they were clapping for her. When she won a children's beauty pageant in Egypt, her father sent her picture to the director Mohamed Karim who was looking for a young female child to play the role of a small girl with the famous Egyptian actor and musician Mohamed Abdel Wahab in the film Youm Sai'd (يوم سعيد, A Happy Day, 1939). After an audition, Abdel Wahab decided she was the one he was looking for. After her role in the film, people called her "Egypt's own Shirley Temple". The director liked her acting and was impressed with her so much that he signed a contract with her father. Four years later, she was chosen by Kareem for another role with Abdel Wahab in the film Rossassa Fel Qalb (رصاصة في القلب, Bullet in the Heart, 1944) and