Mounir Mourad

Who was Mounir Mourad?

Mounir Mourad was an Egyptian artist, singer, actor, and distinguished composer of lighthearted songs. His compositions included duets for Shadia and Abdel Halim Hafez.

He played the leading roles in a few Egyptian films, the most famous being "Of the Good Day".

His father Ibrahim Zaki Mordechai was a famous Jewish Egyptian singer, musician and composer in the early twentieth century. His mother was Jewish Egyptian of Polish origin, Gamilah Salmon. Mourad was born in Cairo. When Mounir was growing up, his sister, the artist Leila Mourad was already famous and singing on the Egyptian radio.

In 1939, Mourad left his French college took various jobs, then entered the field of cinema, firstly as a script supervisor, and then as an assistant director to Kamal Salim in about 24 films in the 1940s.

Mourad attempted to compose and present jazz music that was popular at that time in the West, but faced difficulties in promoting it and to convince anyone to produce it. His big breakthrough, however, came when he composed his first popular song "One Two" sang by Shadia which then opened the way for the singers and film-makers to entrust him to compose songs in many movies.