Farouk (Frank) Agrama: 1930-2023

Film-TV producer and director Frank Agrama died yesterday in Los Angeles, he was 93 years old.

 

Agrama was born in 1930 in El-Arish, North Sinai, Egypt. He started his career as an actor in his native Egypt in 1949. As an actor — with his own TV show — he was earning more than his father, the surgeon general of Egypt. At age 23, Frank became a medical doctor, but he left Egypt for the U.S. in 1960 to attend the University of California in Los Angeles.

 

In 1964 he moved to Lebanon to produce movies, and in 1967, together with his wife and two children, he relocated to Italy, where he founded Film Association of Rome, a theatrical film and distribution company.

 

In 1976 the Agrama family settled in California. In 1983 Agrama founded Los Angeles-based Harmony Gold to distribute the South African Broadcasting Corp.’s miniseries Shaka Zulu.

 

Among the programs Agrama produced, are the Robotech animated features and the 1993 miniseries Heidi. In total, Agrama produced 16 projects between film and TV series, he directed four movies, and starred in three films.