Ahmed El-Shenawi dead at 75: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom actor has passed away

Ahmed El-Shenawi, who starred in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, has died aged 75. The actor’s character in the Steven Spielberg 1984 Temple of Doom, had a black moustache and wore pearl necklaces, and announced that a slithering helping of ‘snake surprise’ is about to be served when the main course arrived at a long banquet table. 

Ahmed El-Shenawi’s daughter Eman El-Shenawi told The Hollywood Reporter that her father had passed away in Chelsea, London. “He had been in the hospital for an operation to repair a fracture and developed an infection that led to sepsis,” she said.

As well as starring in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ahmed played a prisoner in Alan Parker’s Midnight Express movie in 1978 and starred as a therapist in the 1984 film The Element of Crime. When it came to British television the actor also appeared in The Professionals, Cannon and Ball, Muck and Brass and Danger: Marmalade at Work. Ahmed also starred in The Thief of Baghdad which was a 1978 NBC miniseries adaptation. 

Ahmed El-Shenawi’s daughter Eman also revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that her father’s “love for Christmas and Western holidays started” when Ahmed’s father worked as head chef for Egyptair and five-star hotel restaurants. After completing a business degree, Ahmed moved to London and worked as an actor on a radio drama series for the BBC Arabic Service. 

Ahmed’s daughter Eman also revealed that her father told her that “My character as the chubby Arab man’ changed, and the agency would not find as much work for me as it did before when I was big,” after he had undergone a stomach-stapling operation to control his weight.