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Egyptian singer and actress who was widely admired throughout the Arab world and left a legacy of 1,200 songs. Born Liliane Mordechai Mourad in Cairo to an Iraqi musician father and a Polish-born mother. She began performing publicly at 14 and rose to fame in 1938 when the popular musician and actor Abdel Wahab cast her in one of his films. Mourad converted to Islam in 1947 and was banned in the early 1950s due to false rumors, which were later refuted, about her visiting Israel and being a spy. In 1953, she was chosen as the official singer of the Egyptian revolution. She acted in films until the late 1950s and continued her singing career until 1973.
