Movies Zohra | ||
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Died 20 August 1998, Tunis, Tunisia | ||
Haydée Samama Chikly Tamzali (August 23, 1906 — August 20, 1998) was a Tunisian actress, writer, and filmmaker, considered the first woman screenwriter in Africa.
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Early life
Haydée Chikly was born in 1906, the daughter of Tunisian Jewish filmmaker Albert Samama Chikly. Her mother was Italian-born Bianca Ferrero.
Career
Haydée Chikly worked with her father from girlhood. He directed her in her first starring role in a short film, Zohra (1922), written by her, and considered the first fiction film made in Tunisia. They followed this work with another silent drama in 1924, Ain el-Ghezal (The Girl from Carthage), also starring Haydée Chikly, in a story she wrote "to show how badly women were treated when they were just sold off with an arranged marriage into a man's world." The younger Chikly also took a turn at film editing and hand-coloring in her father's employ.
Haydée Chikly also appeared in Rex Ingram's The Arab (1924), but her father did not permit her to relocate to Hollywood to pursue an acting career.
As an adult, Haydée Tamzali married, raised two children, lived in Algiers and Paris, and wrote a cookbook of North African cuisine, La Cuisine en Afrique du Nord.
In 1996, Haydée Tamzali appeared in the film A Summer in La Goulette, by Férid Boughedir.