Mona Wassef

Muna Wassef (also spelled Mona Wasef) (Arabic: منى واصف ; born 1 February 1942) is a Syrian stage, film and television actress. She is also a United Nations Goodwill ambassador. She is an icon in the Arab world and the Middle East. Wassef is credited for acting alongside Salah Zulfikar at the prime of her career in Memory of a Night of Love (1973). Wassef had become the highest-paid actress in the Arab World since the end of the 1970s until the year 2000; now she is one of the highest-paid actresses. Wassef is the first Syrian woman to receive the Syrian Order of Civil Merit–Excellent Degree in 2009. Mona Wassef is most known internationally for starring in Al Hayba with Taim Hasan, streaming on Netflix.

When she was 15 she worked as a cotton candy (Ghazl Al Banat) seller in the streets of Damascus. By the age of 16, she worked as a women's clothes saleswoman for one of Syria's most famous fashion designers at that time, and when she turned 17 she was already working as a fashion model for the same designer, at the same time becoming a popular folk dancer in a group called Omaya.

Although Wassef did not finish high school, she educated herself and learned to present the majority of her works in Standard Arabic. She studied masterpieces of world literature, Quranic Tajwid and Tartil, and reciting poetry.

She traveled to East Germany in 1973 where she took acting courses at the Brecht theater. Working with the Syrian Military Theater allowed her to develop her acting skills further.

In 1960, Wassef submitted herself for a contest in which they chose actresses for the Military theater, which was part of the Syrian Ministry of Defense. She worked and learned there for about 2 years. In 1963 she married the Army General Muhammad Shahin, who was a film director as well. She worked in the symposium of Art and Thought which was sponsored by Dr. (Rafeq Al Sabagh) in presenting Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice in 1963.

In 1964 she joined the Group for Dramatic Arts and starred in stage productions of the National Theater: productions such as Molière's Don Juan. This signaled the beginning of a very important stage in her career.

In theater, Muna Wassef, has starred in more than 25 plays by Arab and international playwrights. Her first play was Al Etr Al Akhdar wics. After that, she performed several plays in the Military Theatre inside the military units including:

In film, Wassef has done more than 30 films, including:

In 1974, Syrian-American film director Moustapha Akkad chose her to play the role of Hind in the Arabic version of his movie Al Risalah Mohammad, Messenger of God,which helped her achieve international recognition, with Anthony Quinn, and Irene Papas in the English version.

Every year Wassef stars in at least two or three TV series. She has done more than 200 series including:

Muna stars in Seraa Ala El Remal. The television series stars actors from the Arab world including Taim Hasan, Saba Mubarak, Hasan Awaytti and Bassel Khayat and is directed by Hatem Ali and written by Hany El-Saady. The series is a major TV production. It was produced by Dubai Media Incorporated. Its estimated cost is over $6 million. So far it is the most expensive Arabic TV production ever, and it was released in September 2008. The series, which is based on the vision and poetry of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, is a Bedouin epic that takes place in the Persian Gulf Bedouin desert at the beginning of the 18th century.

In Ramadan 2009 she appeared in 4 productions. The main one is the most watched TV show in the Arab World ever, Bab Al Hara. She plays the role of a Christian woman who leads the female revolution in Damascus.

Muna Wassef presented some works in Radio as :

In addition to so many poetic evenings and programs.

Wassef has two younger sisters, Haifa and Ghada, who are also actresses. She was married to the late Syrian film Director Muhammad Shahin, and together they formed one of the Arab world's most popular celebrity couples. They have one son Ammar Abdulhamid, who lives in the United States, Washington, D.C., with his wife Khawla, daughter Oula (b. 1986) and son Mouhanad (b. 1990), both work in the public policy and humanitarian aid fields.

Currently, Wassef divides her time between her artistic career and her interest in issues pertaining to the emancipation of women in the Arab world.

Honours and awards that Wassef has received:

She has received other awards in Tunisia, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Muna is frequently invited to Arab countries to lecture and attend festivals, seminars and conferences. These have included: