Mahmoud Ismail (1914âÂÂ1983; ) was an Egyptian actor of stage and film, a screenplay writer, and a film director. Ismail worked on more than 40 film projects, including acting in some twenty five films and six television series.
Ismail began his artistic career as a theater actor in the Egyptian National Theatre Troupe. He was a Sufi, and had lived in the Al-Hussein neighborhood of Cairo.
As an actor in film he frequently worked with film directors Ahmed Badrakhan, Niazi Mostafa, , and Hasan El-Saifi. He often played characters that had a criminal past or villains (such as thieves, thugs, and drug dealers). Ismail disappeared from the film scene for a few years, then returned again to appear on screen intermittently in films and television miniseriesâÂÂs in the late-1970s and early-1980s. Ismail was also a prolific screenplay writer.