Nazem Kamel Elmasri (NED MASRI)

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I was born on April 15 in ElMreijat Bekaa, Lebanon. I am an actor, screenwriter, and filmmaker.

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MY CHILDHOOD IN LEBANON

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I had a very happy childhood working on our farm with my father growing apples, pears, plums, peaches, vegetables, grapes, figs, chickens, and sheep. On weekends I went hunting with my father hiking all over the mountains and descending in the valleys that surrounded my village, and when my father did not feel like hunting, I went swimming in the river with my friends.

I was taught English at home by my father, who was also nd a retired high school teacher and principal.  

            My first three years of schooling were at the church up the hill from our house, learning Arabic and French, as well as Christian religious training. Although I was born in a Durzi family, my parents did not find it difficult to send me to a Christian school since the convent was direct across the street from our house and my mother was friends with the Lebanese, Egyptian, and French nuns who lived there and taught us at the school. My classmates were from all faiths.

            Junior high was at a government secular school in my village Mreijat. Four years later I was attending in Zahle Bekaa, the capital of my county, the Bekaa county, at the exclusive private Evangelical School of Zahle, which my brother Kareem who lives in Los Angeles California, insisted I attend and paid my tuition. However, unfortunately, I did not graduate because the civil war broke out in 1975. I then tried to finish high school in the government high school in Aley Lebanon, but that brutal winter, with record snow, and me having to pass the ice and sleet on the higher mountains pass of Dahr El Baidar above my town at 4941 ft elevation, prevented me from my goal, and my father ordered me to stay home after I told him the horrible stories of fully loaded huge trucks and well as cars sliding on ice, and colliding, on the Beirut-Damascus highway.

          Later in 1975 the Lebanese civil war intensified and I was stuck at home until I left Lebanon to live with my older Late sister Waheeba bless her soul, in Hama Syria, she passed away in 1991, she had cancer. While I was living with her, she was working at the time as a secretary for a Lebanese engineering company, Lahoud Engineering Company, one of five international companies that built a massive cement factory in Hama. I  was meanwhile applying and taking a bus three hours south to Damascus to stand in line to be interviewed by the staff at the American counselor until I finally received my visa to come to the USA.

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MY IMMIGRATION TO THE USA

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            On 11/11/1976 I landed at LAX and lived with his brother Kareem in San Gabriel CA for two years. Two days after arriving in Los Angeles California, I started my first day at San Gabriel High School and graduated on June sixth, 1977.

            The following  , I did not attend any educational institution, and worked at Jack in the Box and MacDonald, right after graduation from Sann Gabriel High. Then in the fall of that year, I started working at Shell gas station owned by Edward Totry from Nazareth, at 1861 S. San Gabriel Blvd, and worked there until 1979, while taking Auto Mechanics and theater arts classes at Pasadena City College.

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MORE ABOUT MY WORK HISTORY

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            Between October 1979 and March 1983, I worked different sales jobs including at the Los Angeles Times, and The Daily News, newspapers, selling door to door subscriptions. Insurance and real estate lead creating, as well as telemarketing, for a commodities company at the twin towers in  Century City. During that period I was also attending auditions for film and theater in southern and northern California.

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MY ACTING AND SCREENWRITING WORK

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            I used to be a member of the American Federation of television artists, I purchased my membership back in 1991 AFTRA# 177176 ( Expired), for seven hundred and fifty dollars which I earned from working as a pizza delivery driver for my cousin, Mike. I used to also have an actor’s Equity Audition card # A3315, which I qualified for because I had worked more than one thousand hours on the set of professional Hollywood film and television productions, as a movie extra, between 1985 and 1990.

         Currently, I do a lot of screenwriting and I am in a Zoom screenwriting group, based in Santa Fe NM, and lead by Suzanne Birrell. I had written numerous screenplays for film and television, and you can see some samples on my screenwriting profile at www.scriptrevolution.com

            However, first and foremost, I am an actor, and while I was working as a movie extra during the week, In November 1986 I found an advertisement for: The Royal Hollywood Shakespeare Company, in the Los Angeles trade paper at the time: THE DRAMA LOGUE, requesting actors to audition for Shakespearean roles, and having studied Macbeth in Lebanon, I auditioned, but I was rejected , but after lots of pleading I was granted the job of prop master assistant.

                 The company presented Shakespearean plays free to the public at Hancock park ( La Brea Tar Pits) in West Los Angeles on Saturdays and Sundays at 2.30 PM. I started with them in 1986 as a volunteer prop master, but I kept learning parts and rehearsing on weeknights with the director/producer Sir Gregory Lansing, and my first part was the soothsayer in Julius Caesar. My last performance with the company was in August 1992, and by that time I had played: Julius Caesar’s Soothsayer, Casca, Decius, Metellus Cimber, Lucius, Cinna the poet. Macbeth Act 1 scene 1, 3 Witches, and the dagger scene. Othello Act 1 Scene 1 Iago, Richard III Act 1 Scene 1, and oration to his army, the nightmare scene. Hamlet: To be or not to be...and Ghost Henry V, Chorus, as well as in Sir Lansing’s theatrical adaptation of The Robe, with Victor Mature,  Sir Lansing titled the production: Caligula, Emperor Of Rome, where I played: Tribune, and Pretorian guard.

            In September 1990, I joined an improvisation group at the Ventura Studio in Studio City CA, later in September 2015 I did the same thing at Theater in the Valley in Henderson Nevada, where I had directed Murder at the Howard Johnson’s. My other theater credentials are listed in my resume.

            In 1991 I made a super-eight film, 35 minutes long, my partner Sherman Hirsh and I transferred it to VHS cassette, and it was intended for the VHS videocassette market back then, but marketing it required additional financing which I could not manage. It was a surrealistic look at an actor’s life.

            While preparing for the production, one day while I was buying props at the Goodwill thrift shop on San Fernando Rd in Burbank California, I found a super eight camera, I grabbed it, and while I was looking at it, a voice behind me said: “ What are you going to do with that?”. Startled, I turned around and was even more startled to see a man that looks exactly like Alfred Hitchcock standing there. That man was Mr. Larry Raymond, a director of photography who worked on most Hollywood productions including Flight of Phoenix with James Stewart. Larry became my mentor as well and I would visit his house twice a week, and discuss what I am about to do, and he would give me valuable advice. At his home also meet a lot of interesting personalities.

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WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT, I'D BE A JUDGE AT A BEAUTY PAGEANT

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          Mr Raymond's neighbor was the head of the Philippines community, and he had asked him to be one of the judges of the upcoming pageant, Miss Philippines LA. Two days later Mr. Raymond, told me that he was not feeling well, and asked me to take his place and be one of three judges at the Hollywood Palladium which I did, later in 1998 I had moved to Hawaii, and also participated as a volunteer in the Miss Philippines Honolulu.

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REPRESENTING THE USA AND LEBANON

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            In 1995 I visited my family in Lebanon, and also visited Cyprus, for six months, where I was a volunteer office assistant, at the International Theater Institute Cypriot branch at 39 Regeana street, the consul general of the office Mr. Nicos Shiafkali left me in charge when he visited Kuwait city to advise on the theater productions there as well as when he went to Manila Philippines to honor the Nigerian poet Wole Soyinka. Later when he came back. Mr. Shiafkali told me that ITI is having its annual celebration at the home of the minister of culture and that representatives from all European countries are attending, and that we do not have an American or a Lebanese representative and since I fit both, being a Lebanese American citizen, and a theater actor who played Shakespearean parts, I was chosen.

            On January 7th the massive celebration took place, Cypriot food and drink companies supplied the guests with whatever they desired, stacks of beer and wine crates as high as rooms were outside the minister of culture's home, delicious cheeses, and other foods were offered. Performers from most European countries, performed, as well as traditional Cypriot musicians and singers, then came to my turn and I presented songs from Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt, as well as Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. I also performed Hamlet’s father, the ghost.

               A month later I was cast as the King in the joint Cypriot /Finnish production of seven against Thebes by Aeschylus, but my visa expired and I wasn't able to renew it, so I flew back to Lebanon, and in November 1997 I came back to the USA.

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HAWAII

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            While I was living in Hawaii between 1998 and in 2016 on and off, in 1999, I was living in Hilo Hawaii, where I volunteered at a small radio station KCIF 91.5, as a receptionist, but the producer Pastor Shotwell, agreed with the staff that I had a good radio voice, and I was chosen to do public service announcements.

             In 2006, I also lived in Santa Barbara CA attending SBCC and volunteering as a cameraman, at the college TV station, as required by a TV production course I was taking. I also lived in San Jose CA and attended DE Anza College in Cupertino, also taking film and TV production classes.  In 2015-16 I lived in Las Vegas NV while living in Henderson NV a suburb of Las Vegas and directing Murder at the Howard Johnson’s at Theater In the Valley, I also studied, took the tests with Language Solutions LL based in the Cayman Islands. as an  English /Arabic instantaneous translator, in the fields of medicine, real estate, insurance, banking and finance, and auto mechanics.

            Between 2015 -2019 I lived in Guam, Orlando FL, and San Juan Puerto Rico, where I was preparing to produce shows to be presented at various casinos, theaters, and other venues.

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FIGHTING CORONA VIRUS LOCKDOWN LONELINESS WITH ONLINE EDUCATION

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            In 2019 I moved back to the bay area to an Airbnb in Newark CA, and one day while looking at Craig's list film and television jobs advertisements section I found an ad that BUGALU CAFE (formerly known as The Lifton Academy Of Media Arts), had placed and became an online student. I then found a more affordable apartment in Hayward California, and moved in, with the intention of attending nearby Chabot College and continuing my education. Then COVID-19 appeared, and I have been at home ever since, while taking classes online with https://bug.cafe/, attending my Zoom screenwriting critique group on Monday nights, doing a lot of screenwriting, and making short films at home.