Legendary Egyptian actress Soheir Al-Bably dies at 84

Tributes to Egyptian actress Soheir Al-Bably flooded social media on Sunday, hours after Egyptian media announced her passing at the age of 84. 

Al-Bably was admitted to an intensive care unit in Egypt a few days ago, where she fell into a diabetic coma.

Described by some as a "pillar of Egyptian cinema", Al-Bably was born in 1937 in Egypt and grew up in the Nile Delta city of Mansoura, close to Alexandria. She studied acting at the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts and music at the Institute of Music.

Beloved Egyptian actress, Suhair Al Babli, has passed away at the age of 86. She was famous for her theatrical rendition as Sakina, one of two serial killers who robbed women of their gold and then killed them, terrorising Alexandrian society in the early 1900s. pic.twitter.com/vANs7fwhsY

— Arwa Ibrahim (@arwaib) November 21, 2021

Al-Bably made her debut during the golden age of Egyptian cinema and starred in dozens of films throughout her career, which spanned four decades.

In 1997, she retired from the film industry but returned after a fifteen-year long break in 2006 with a religious series, 'Qalb Habiba' ("A Lover’s Heart").

One of her most famous theatrical performance was the play 'Raya Wa Sekina', which told the story of two sisters who attacked and murdered at least 17 women in Alexandria in the early 20th century.