Add/Update Information: Khalil Shawqi - Actor

An Iraqi actor, director and writer, born in Baghdad in 1924. He joined the acting department at the Institute of Fine Arts, and left his studies there after four years, but he soon returned to it to obtain a diploma in 1954. He worked as an employee in the railway department, as well as supervised the film unit in it and directed many documentaries and news reels for it, which were shown on Baghdad TV between 1959 and 1964. His beginning was in the theater and he was one of the founders of the Folkloric Acting Troupe in 1947. The troupe made only one play, The Martyrs of Patriotism, in which he acted. In 1964, he formed a theatrical troupe called the Artistic Theater Group. He acted in many plays, including The Palm and the Neighbors, and Once Upon a Time. And as a director, he directed the play The Dream (1965), and administratively he remained attached to it until the band stopped working. In 1967, he directed The Guard, which is the only feature film that he directed. He was one of the pioneers of Iraqi television, where he began working in 1956, the year of its founding. His most prominent television work was in the series The Wolf and Eyes of the City, and The Eagle and Eyes of the City. He participated as an actor and writer in the movie The Thirsty (1973). He also began working on the radio in 1947 as a writer and director for a number of radio skits. He passed away in April 2015, at the age of 91, in the Netherlands, where he resided as a political refugee since the mid-nineties.