The Akkad family members were on their way from California to the Middle East to mourn the loss of Rima, Moustapha Akkad's daughter, when they found out that the producer was killed in the triple-hotel bombing in Amman, too.
"It's so unfair, so unfair! For someone like him, who believed in peace... ", wept a devastated Fadia Monla-Nabahani, the sister of Akkad's son-in-law.
The Syrian-American filmmaker, famous for producing the "Halloween" horror movies and his daughter, Rima Akkad Monla, 34, were attending a wedding reception at the Radisson SAS hotel, one of three places attacked, according to the U.S. State Department and a spokeswoman for Trancas International, his film studio.
Akkad, 75, died Friday in a Jordanian hospital, one day after his daughter Monla was killed.
In the Arab world, Moustapha Akkad was best known as the director of two much-admired films: a history of Islam and the story of a Libyan nationalist leader.
Hours after his death was announced, one Arab satellite channel broadcast his most appreciated "The Message", a three-hour sweeping history of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. The movie, which cost $17 million, was released in 1976, "when most Arab historical films were shoddy and had low budgets", according to Ali Abdullah, a Lebanese writer and critic. Akkad refused to subtitle the Arabic film and made a separate English version starring Anthony Quinn.
Moustapha Akkad came to the United States in 1954, at the age of 19, and graduated from UCLA's theater arts program before earning a master's degree from the University of Southern California, according to the Times.
He worked as a producer at various studios before starting his own production company in the early 1970s. After he spent years raising money to make "The Message", he turned to horror films to help finance his other interests.
Before his death, Mr. Akkad has been planning an epic about Salahuddin, the 12th-century Muslim warrior who recaptured Jerusalem from the Crusaders. He reportedly had persuaded Sean Connery to play Salahuddin.
Moustapha AkkadProducer - filmography:
Halloween: Resurrection (2002) (executive producer)
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) (executive producer)
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) (executive producer)
Halloween 5 (1989) (executive producer)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) (executive producer)
Free Ride (1986) (executive producer)
Appointment with Fear (1985) (executive producer)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) (executive producer)
Halloween II (1981) (executive producer)
Lion of the Desert (1981) (producer)
Halloween (1978) (executive producer)
The Message (1976) (producer)
Risālah, al- (1976) (producer)
Director - filmography:
Lion of the Desert (1981)
The Message (1976)
Risālah, al- (1976)
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