Friday, February 8, 2013

Zia Mohyeddin


Zia Mohyeddin was born in Lyallpur (now Faisalabad) into a family of scholars and aesthetes. He took off for Australia after his degree in philosphy from where his fame started. He went on to the famed Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in 1953 and soon began a successful career on the boards.
Mr Mohyeddin starred in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and made his West End debut playing Dr Aziz in EM Forster’s Passage to India. Mr Mohyeddin was a smash on Broadway, too. Stints on the BBC and ITV followed. At the peak of his career, he decided to move back home.
He returned to Pakistan in the 1960s, hosting the Zia Mohyeddin show on PTV. He set up the PIA Arts and Dance Academy the following decade. The arts academy toured the world and performed at the Madison Square Garden and for Queen Elizabeth II. When Gen Ziaul Haq effectively banned the arts in the 1980s, He once again, left for London.
In February 2005 he was invited by  President Pervez Musharraf  to act as Chairman of the new National Academy of Performing Arts in Karachi.

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