The surprising ‘Temple of Doom’ actor was 75 years old

Ahmed Al-Shinawee

Courtesy of Iman El-Shenawy

Ahmed El-Shenawy, the Egyptian-born actor whose character happily announces that a slippery helping of “Snake Surprise” is about to be served in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, He died. He was 75 years old.

His daughter, Iman El-Shenawy, said that El-Shenawy died on February 1 in Chelsea, London Hollywood Reporter. He was in the hospital for surgery to repair a fracture and developed an infection that led to sepsis, she said.

El-Shenawy also played the role of a prisoner who inherits a radio in Alan Parker’s horrific film Midnight Express (1978) starring Brad Davis, and he had the pivotal role of the therapist who hypnotizes Detective Michael Elphick in the film The crime element (1984) – Lars von Trier’s first feature film and his first Europe Triple. Both films were screened at Cannes.

His daughter said: “I think his short but poignant moments of fame had a great resonance among many.”

In Steven Spielberg Temple of Doom (1984), the very large El-Shenawy, wearing flowing pearl necklaces and a thick black mustache extending to his sideburns, sits next to Kate Capshaw’s Willie Scott at a long banquet table. The main course that arrives is a huge snake that has been sliced ​​apart to reveal other live snakes inside.

Also on the menu that night: insects, eyeball soup, and, for dessert, chilled monkey brains.

El-Shenawy spoke “with a clear, British accent,” his daughter wrote in a beautiful tribute to her father in 2011, “and (Spielberg) noticed his eloquent style, (he said to him): ‘Oh Ahmed, you are a Shakespearean type of actor.’”

One of six children — four boys and two girls — El-Shenawy had a “very lively family life in Egypt,” said Iman El-Shenawy. THR. His father worked as a chef for EgyptAir and five-star hotel restaurants, “and that’s where my father’s love of Christmas and Western holidays began,” she says.

After obtaining a degree in business administration from the college, El-Shenawy moved to London in 1971 and worked for the BBC Arabic Service as an actor in a radio drama series that had a global audience of Arab listeners. He later became a member of the British Actors’ Equity Association.

El-Shenawy also appeared in a miniseries adaptation of the 1978 NBC series The thief of Baghdad And on British television in Professionals, Cannon and ball, Mud and copper And Danger: Marmalade in action before Temple of Doom It arrived in theaters.

His acting career was pretty much over after he needed a stomach stapling procedure to control his weight, his daughter wrote.

“My personality as the ‘fat Arab guy’ had changed, and the agency wasn’t finding me as much work as it did before when I was older,” he told her. “But I’m still thrilled that I can wear a better set of suits!”

Iman accompanied her father to… Indiana Jones She noted that it was a commemorative event years ago, and that it “created an instant connection with the fans.” “And even nearly 30 years after the film’s release, they were lining up to see the man who delivered one of the most gruesome dinner table scenes in the history of cinema.”