He left his mark on the small screen and the stage for decades before being forced by illness to distance himself in recent years. An essential figure in the Moroccan artistic landscape, Mustapha Zaari passed away this Tuesday, December 2, 2024 in Rabat after a long fight against prostate cancer. He was 79 years old.
The deterioration of his state of health required a long hospitalization last April at the Mohammed V Military Hospital in the capital. Recovered from his troubles, he nevertheless gave in to illness. His last appearance on television was in the soap opera “Rihlat Omr” (The Journey of a Lifetime), directed by Lamiss Khairate and recently broadcast on Al Oula (SNRT group). Quite a symbol. It was after a long absence. Our journalists, Hafida Ouajmane and Adil Gadrouz, had meanwhile gone to his bedside, in 2021. Here is what the deceased told us.
Born in 1945 in Derb Sultan in Casablanca, Mustapha Zaari began his career with the Abdelkader El Badaoui theater troupe in 1967. On television, he charmed viewers with his authenticity, his joie de vivre and his humor and made a name for himself. television in the 1970s. The duo he formed with comedian Mustapha Dassoukine also won the hearts of Moroccans. Their appearance on screens in the 1980s and 1990s was always anticipated.
Also read: One of the pillars of popular comedy in Morocco, Mustapha Dassoukine gives up the ghost
Mustapha Zaari will have shone so much in the theater, with plays like “Halouf Karmouss” or “Daba t’ji Dada”, television in serials like “Merhba B’s7abi”, “Setta men Settine” or “Saâdi B’bnati » or even in the cinema in Moroccan films like “Toufoula Moughtassaba” or foreign ones like the masterpiece “Arrissala” by Mustapha Akad.
