Bahja Al MahdiHer real name is Henriette Cohen, an Egyptian comedian and one of the stars of Egyptian cinema in the 1930s.
She was born in the city of Alexandria on the 11th of August 1911, belongs to the religionthe JewsYeh. Bahja loved art and acting since she was young, and tried to join the theater and was able to enter it and present several plays in Alexandria. She was discovered by director Togo Mizrahi, and she began her career through the movie “The Torgoman” with the Egyptian actor Shalom, and also formed a distinguished duet with the late actor Ali Al-Kassar, and presented with him films (7 o’clock, the gendarmerie guard, my predecessor 3 pounds) she moved away from the artistic field since In 1940, she also left Egypt following the 1948 war.
Bahja al-Mahdi’s family decided to move from the popular neighborhoods of Alexandria to reside in Cairo in 1927, and the family settled in the Jewish neighborhood and her father at that time was the leader of the Jews, where he began working in the gold trade and her family became one of the most important Jewish families in Egypt.
The artistic beginnings of Bahja Al-Mahdi
Bahja participated in several theatrical works, and then entered the world of cinema through director Togo Mizrahi and in front of actor Shalom in 1935, and began her artistic career, which lasted only 5 years, following which she left an important artistic legacy.
After presenting her first movie with Ali al-Kassar, which is “The Gendarmerie Guard”, Bahja al-Mahdi succeeded in becoming a constant and essential element in his films. Together, they presented a duo that the masses adored. Bahija embodies the personality of al-Kassar’s wife, who loves him deeply and tries to end the ongoing conflict between him and her mother Zakia. She became famous for this role among the audience and became one of the main elements of Al-Kassar’s films, so that nearly half of her cinematic works presented her with him and she often had the role of the wife, starting with the “gendarmerie guard”, passing through “Salfni 3 pounds”, and until her last films in the cinema, a movie Minds owners.
The marriage of Bahja Al-Mahdi to Ali Al-Kassar
Bahja Al-Mahdi formed an important duet with the Egyptian actor Ali Al-Kassar, and like the rest of the duets immortalized in the minds of the viewers, due to the high chemistry between them, which made many believe that they were married in real life, but the truth is that Ali Al-Kassar did not marry Baheeja Al-Mahdi, but they were a successful couple. In the cinema, he made the well-known director Togo Mizrahi present them together in more than one cinematic work.
Bahja Al Mahdi’s private life
While working in the theater, she fell in love with a millionaire Egyptian Jewish man named “Eli Derhy” who was regarding 50 years older than her. A strong love story arose between them that ended with their marriage. And following only regarding 3 years, her husband died, and she became a millionaire in the artistic community.
Away from art and acting
In 1948, following the war that took place in Egypt, Bahja Al-Mahdi left acting and moved away from the artistic community following her last work, “The People of Minds” with Bishara Wakim and Suleiman Naguib, and then emigrated without leaving behind any information regarding her destination, to confirm that she left Egypt because of The harassment she was subjected to due to her affiliation to the Jewish religion, and settled inUnited States of America.
It is said that Baheja, according to her influence and money, was working to help Jews emigrate from Egypt to Israel, and that in the United States she became one of the most important businesswomen in the Zionist state and settled for a long time.
its end
Bahja al-Mahdi married a Jewish man and had a daughter with him, and the whole family immigrated with her mother to Israel.
In the mid-seventies, Bahia lost her mind and became insane, and shockingly killed her daughter, husband and mother with a firearm, and then she was transferred to a mental hospital and held in ward “A” for serious patients until she left his room at the end of the seventies.
