Algiers, Algeria | 1923-03-01 | 1977-10-21

Sid Ali Fernandel (real name Chabane Haouat), born in March 1923, in Zoudj Ayoun, in the Casbah of Algiers, is an Algerian actor and comedian. Born into a modest family, this student of Rachid Ksentini was a close friend of Mustapha Skandrani and Blaoui El-Houari. Funny, comical and generous, Sid Ali Fernandel began his adventure in the fourth art in the forties, in the wake of the great master of Algerian theater Mahieddine Bachtarzi. He rubbed shoulders with the greats of the fourth art, such as Rouiched. He opted for the stage despite his parents' opposition. He left school very early (in the second year of primary school) and joined the scouts. He started at seventeen and would play in many Algiers sketches such as "Le mariage moderne" and "Le mouton à quatre pattes". With great humor, he performed as always, "Yema, Marti Ou Ana" (My mother, my wife and I). He also performed many educational ditties such as "Balak Min At-Trig" (Watch out for the road) and "Talaq Bila Zawadj". During the Algerian War, he joined the maquis (Wilaya IV), in 1956, arrested and interned in a torture center, he managed to escape, playing a guard who takes out the garbage cans. He took refuge with a relative then went to El Jadida in Morocco. He then joined the FLN artistic troupe. After 1962, he returned to Algiers, lived in Saint-Eugène, 25 rue Carnot. A professional actor at the RTA, paid monthly, he was also one of the main hosts of the Blue Nights of Ramadan, organized at the El-Kettani hall in the late 1960s. This son of Zenqat El-Karma, loved to laugh, eat and fish. He would tour several times with the variety orchestra of Blaoui El-Houari and Fatayet El-Andalous. His last show, before leaving for France in the early 1970s, was held during the Orange Festival in Miliana. Deeply affected by the illness of his two twin daughters, after brief stays in Algeria, he died in a diabetic coma far from the stage, in Mont Vermeil, on Thursday, October 21, 1977 and was repatriated to his native country to be buried in the El-Kettar cemetery in Algiers.