Mary Queeny

Mary Queeny (Arabic: ماري كويني ; 1913-2003) is the stage name of Mary Boutros Younis, was a Lebanese-born Egyptian actress and film producer.

Mary Boutros Younis was born in 1913 to a Lebanese Christian family in Lebanon. Her mother's cousin was Asaad Dagher, a writer and journalist at the Al-Ahram newspaper.

In 1923 Queeny moved to Cairo with her aunt, actress and film producer Assia Dagher, and started acting in 1929. Her first role was in 1929 in the film Ghadat al-sahara (The Desert Beauty), and she went on to star in all of her aunt's subsequent films.

Queeny became a popular actress and producer in a pioneering age of Egyptian cinema. She appeared in 20 films and was among the first women in Egypt to appear on screen without a veil.

Queeny married Ahmed (or Ahmad) Galal (1897-1947) in 1940. Until her retirement in 1982, she produced all of the films he directed. With her husband she founded Galal Films in 1942; in 1944 it became Galal Studios. During the Golden Age of Egyptian film, it was one of the five largest studios. The first films shot at the studios were Om al-Saad, Amirat al-Ahlam (Princess of Dreams) and 'Aoudat al-Gha'eb (The Return of the Departed). After her husband's sudden death in 1947, Queeny and her son, Nader Galal, continued to run the studios. The studios were later nationalised by the Nasser government.

In 1958 she established a film colour processing laboratory, which in 1963 she sold to the Misr Company (later Misr International), which was later acquired by Youssef Chahine and his niece, Marianne Khoury.

Film director Nader Galal is the son of Queeny and Ahmad Galal. Ahmed Nader Galal is their grandson, son of Nader, and is an actor. He graduated from the directing course at the Higher Institute of Cinema in Cairo 1997.

Queeny died on 23 November 2003 in Cairo of a heart attack. She was 90.