Badiea Khairy

Badiea Khairy

Technical information

Egyptian playwright and actor, born as Badiea Omar Khairy on August 17, 1893, in Maghriblin neighborhood, Cairo. He is considered one of the most prominent Egyptian playwrights of...Read more the twentieth century, and the first to write for Egyptian cinema. He memorized the Qur’an, and wrote the zajal at an early age. In 1905, he graduated from the Teachers Institute, then was appointed as a geography and English teacher, and worked in the Egyptian Telephone Authority, for his proficiency in Arabic and English. Khairy wrote his first poem at age thirteen under a pseudonym he chose for himself "Ibn Al-Nil". Most of his poems were published in newspapers such as Al-Afkar, Al-Moayad,and Al-Watan. He founded a troupe called Al-Masry for Modern Acting. In 1912, he met Sayed Darwish, then began to establish the art of dance operetta in Egypt, the first of which was called "The Egyptian Pound". In 1917, he established the Literary Theatre, in addition to writing some plays for the Okasha Troupe. He began writing monologues and then writing plays, and his debut play was " Big Trouble". His debut silent film was The Two Reps, while his most notable early films in talking cinema were Determination, and The Victory of Youth. He formed with Naguib El Rehany the most important theatrical duo in the 1930s and 40s, with their first collaboration in the novel "According to Your Taste', and their last collaboration was the movie The Flirtation of Girls. He also wrote plays for Ali El Kassar, such as "The Ghoul". He was married to a woman from outside the artistic field who died before him, and they had three children; the eldest Mubdi, who is a lawyer, Nabil who graduated from the Film Institute, and his third son, Adel Khairy, who became an actor. He passed away on February 3, 1966.