Moustapha Akkad (1933-2005)

By Samir Twair


	Moustapha Akkad and his daughter, Rima Akkad Monla, both killed in the Nov. 9 bombing of the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Amman, Jordan (Courtesy Akkad Family).

IT MIGHT have been a scene from one of Moustapha Akkad’s films: a world-renowned filmmaker steps forward to greet his beautiful daughter just as a massive explosion from a suicide bomb shatters the lobby of a luxury hotel in Amman, Jordan.

Tragically, it wasn’t a movie, but violent reality. Rima Akkad Monla, 34, was killed instantly in the Nov. 9 blast, and her father, film producer Moustapha Akkad, 72, died two days later.

Throughout the Arab world, Moustapha Akkad was revered for his films “The Message” (1976) and “The Lion of the Desert” (1981), both available from the AET Book Club.

Akkad’s life story is not unlike a movie script: A young Syrian with $200 in his pocket arrives in Hollywood with dreams of becoming a filmmaker and, against all odds, achieves success in Tinseltown.

The eldest of seven siblings, Akkad grew up in Aleppo, where he told people he would someday make movies in Hollywood. Skeptical neighbors cautioned him to limit his dreams to Arab film studios. Undeterred, Akkad wrote to UCLA and was accepted to study theater arts. He worked for a year to earn the money for his 1954 flight to California.

Joyce Hayes, a fellow student at UCLA, remembers Akkad as “good looking, creative and charismatic.” There were only a handful of Arab students at UCLA in 1954, but the following year Middle Eastern students began meeting daily in the cafeteria, where they sat at a designated “Arab Table.” In the fall of 1956, the Young Arab Organization (YAO) was registered at UCLA and Akkad served as president for one term.

“UCLA traditionally sponsored an international festival on the first weekend in May,” Hayes recalled, “and student groups competed for the best booth. The rule was that no one could start construction of a booth until 7 a.m. Saturday. Moustapha put together two prefabricated stage sets of fantastic Arab castles and forts at his fraternity house. Then he hauled them to the festival site, where they were re-assembled at 7 a.m. Needless to say, YAO won year after year.”

Akkad easily assimilated into university life, but he struggled financially and earned his lodging by working as a house boy in a mansion near the UCLA campus. He often was advised to change or Anglicize his name, but Akkad took every opportunity to tell people he was a Syrian and a Muslim.

After receiving a degree in theater arts from UCLA, Akkad earned a master’s degree in cinema production at the University of Southern California. In 1962, he landed a job as production assistant for director Sam Peckinpah in “Ride the High Country.” From there, he moved to CBS to produce ”How Others See Us,” a TV series documenting how foreign students view Americans. A subsequent series, “Caesar’s World,” was a travelogue featuring actor Caesar Romero visiting different parts of the globe.

Akkad’s dream was to introduce the West to the story of the Prophet Mohammed and the origins of Islam. It had been tried in seven earlier films, and each was a failure. His unique perception was never to show an image of the Prophet, but to have the actors speak to the camera as if addressing the Prophet.

It took seven years to raise the money, develop a script and then gain the approval for each page of dialogue from the foremost Islamic Sunni and Shi’i scholars. Added to Akkad’s daunting task was his insistence that the film be made twice. English-speaking actors would perform a scene, then an Arab cast would enact the same scene in Arabic dialogue.

Akkad’s masterpiece, “The Message,” was released in 1976. It was jinxed, however, by a disastrous opening in Washington, DC, where a sect of African American converts to Islam stormed several offices in the capital and took hostages, demanding that “The Message” not be shown. The converts had not seen the movie but, assuming the Prophet would be portrayed as Jesus is in biblical films, insisted it be withdrawn. The theater chain that booked the film canceled its run.

The fracas decimated box office returns in the U.S., but over the years, “The Message” has become a perennial seller among Muslims worldwide.

Akkad’s second epic film, “Omar Mukhtar: Lion of the Desert” brought to life a legendary Arab hero. The Syrian director coordinated a crew of hundreds and a cast of thousands for three months in the Libyan desert in 1980.

Anthony Quinn starred as the Libyan teacher and freedom fighter against Italy’s pre-World War II colonization of the North African country. Arab-American filmographer Jack Shaheen deems the movie one of the best ever made that depicts Arabs as heroes. Akkad knew it would be box office suicide to make a film depicting the unfair odds between Palestinians and Israelis, but the battle of humble Omar Mukhtar against Mussolini’s army was an allegory few Arabs missed.

In 1981, this writer sat in the Al-Sufara Cinema when “Lion of the Desert” made its Damascus premiere. Two thousand spectators jumped to their feet and ecstatically applauded, cheered and ululated as Moustapha Akkad was introduced.

What a triumphal homecoming it must have been.

Akkad’s greatest commercial success was the “Halloween” franchise of eight horror films, which he produced from 1978 to 2002. The first movie, directed by John Carpenter, was made on a budget of $300,000 and broke all records as the highest grossing independent film of its time. The original is regarded a classic in the slasher genre, but eschews any gory scenes.

The penniless youth from Aleppo made it spectacularly in Hollywood but, along with Casey Kasem and Dr. Sabri El Farra, always remained a pillar of the Los Angeles Arab-American community. As early as 1965, he served on the board of advisors of the Islamic Foundation of Southern California. The movie maker never failed to support fund-raising events of the National Association of Arab Americans and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

In February 1987, when seven Palestinians and the Kenyan wife of one of them were arrested by the FBI, this writer along with Mahmoud El Farra called for an emergency community meeting. Akkad was the first to offer a $5,000 check for the legal defense of the LA 8.

Rima Akkad Monla was buried in Beirut, where she resided with her husband, Ziad, and sons Tarek, 4, and Moustapha, 2. She graduated with a degree in international relations from the University of Southern California. An avid polo player, she developed a line of maternity fashions, Funky Mama, in Lebanon, where her husband was the chief administrator of the family-owned Monla Hospital in Tripoli.

Akkad was buried in Aleppo, where his coffin was borne by thousands of Syrians to his resting place. A memorial reception, attended by 1,500 mourners, was televised for nine hours throughout Syria.

During a Nov. 27 memorial service at the Islamic Center of Southern California, Akkad’s producer son, Malek, stated: “We have lost the patriarch of our family and our princess, Rima. The theme of my father’s career was to bridge the gap of misunderstanding between East and West. He met with kings, presidents and prime ministers, but he always judged people on the merit of their character and had no regard for titles or material possessions.”

Youngest son Zade commented: “My father had the eye of an eagle. He missed nothing. He told me to be proud of myself because I was unique, no one else in the world was or ever would be Zade Akkad. I have been to the Middle East 10 times, but this last visit was different. My life changed as I heard so many people tell me how much my father and his films meant to them.”

Samir Twair is a free-lance journalist based in Los Angeles.