Theater exec and philanthropist
SALAH M. HASSANEIN, 1921 – 2019
During his many decades in the film industry, Salah M. Hassanein worked behind the scenes. As he moved up the ladder from being a movie theater usher to becoming the president of United Artists Eastern Theaters and later president of Warner Bros. International Theaters, Hassanein was a tough negotiator, a tireless networker and an international deal-maker.
But in life, Hassanein was a star. Whether he was serving on the board of the Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center at UC San Diego Health, attending a San Diego Opera gala with his longtime partner, fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, or hosting a dinner at the beachfront house he and Rhodes shared, the witty and sociable Hassanein was a man who lit up a room. And his glow was catching.
“He was like a magnet. If you met the man, you were drawn into his field of strength,” said cardiologist Anthony DeMaria, who drafted Hassanein to be an early board member of the Sulpizio Center. “He was charming and he was friendly. And when he was talking to you, he made you feel like you were the most important thing in the world.”
Hassanein came to San Diego 25 years ago, bringing his warmth and philanthropic largess with him. He died at his home in Del Mar on June 7. He was 98.
Salah Mohammed Hassanein was born on May 31, 1921, in Alexandria, Egypt. When Hassanein came to the U.S. in the early 1940s, he had some classes at the London School of Economics in Cairo under his belt and, according to family legend, $60 in his pocket.
Fortunately, he also had the sponsorship of George P. Skouras, a Greek immigrant who became the president of United Artists Theaters and Skouras Theaters Inc.
Skouras gave Hassanein a job as an usher at one of his movie theaters. It was the beginning of a long career that would find Hassanein becoming president of United Artists Eastern Theaters; expanding the Warner Bros. movie-theater empire into Japan, Australia, the Far East and London; and executive producing horrormaster George A. Romero’s “Day of the Dead,” “Creepshow” and “Knightriders.”
“He was extremely smart,” daughter Nesa Hassanein said of her father, who spoke fluent French, English, Italian and Arabic . “He did not have the kind of formal education or a pedigree that a lot of people bring to the table. He was a self-educated man. He was a voracious reader. He wanted to absorb as much knowledge as he possibly could.”
Hassanein met his first wife, Neva Cooper, on a blind date. They were married in 1946, one year after Hassanein began his two-year stint in the Army. The couple divorced in 1978, and Cooper died in 2004. Hassanein married Elyse England in 1978; the couple divorced in 1993. Rhodes has been his partner since 1994.
After their marriage, Salah and Neva settled in New York and the couple had five children. Hassanein was very career-driven, but the family always came together at the holidays and for yearly trips that could be anything from horseback riding in Montana to the Mediterranean cruise they took just a few years before Hassanein’s death.
“These trips were very, very meaningful,” Nesa said. “It was family first when it came to what was really important in his life. It’s not that the business successes and charities weren’t important, but the experiences we had with him on those family trips, those were the memories I’ll cherish forever.”
Philanthropy was a driving force in Hassanein’s life. He served on the board of the Variety Boys & Girls Club of Queens, and he was the president and honorary chairman of the Will Rogers Motion Picture Pioneers Foundation. In 2011, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
Hassanein’s survivors include his four children — Richard Hassanein, Nesa Hassanein, Salah Hassanein and Neva Hassanein — and Rhodes. His son Roland died in 2015.