Word: samira
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...there, selling Singer sewing machines and Coca-Cola. In the early 1950s the future Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi offered al Fayed a share in a Khashoggi business that exported Egyptian-made furniture to Saudi Arabia. The company took off, and not long after, al Fayed married Khashoggi's sister Samira, who gave birth to Dodi in 1955. He divorced her after two years and went into the construction business in the United Arab Emirates. After befriending Dubai's ruler, al Fayed won big development contracts for British firms prowling the Persian Gulf. "Of course," says Khashoggi, "there were fees...
...dashing Dodi was royalty of a different sort. He was the only son of Mohamed al Fayed and his late first wife Samira Khashoggi, sister of Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. The elder Al Fayed is a self-made billionaire whose wealth is greater than the Queen's. His sprawling empire contains some highly prized European properties. In addition to London's fashionable Harrods department store, he owns the Ritz Hotel of Paris, the British humor magazine Punch, the Fulham soccer club and a $32 million, 190-ft. yacht. The senior Al Fayed also holds a long-term lease...
...exotic interludes were a vogue in the 18th century, and Corigliano and Hoffman mock the form with glee. The setting is an outlandish reception at the Turkish embassy, presided over by a 12-ft. foam pasha from whose mail-slot mouth a bass voice emerges. As the sultry singer Samira, mezzo Marilyn Horne reclines lasciviously on a plushy couch and tosses off a florid cavatina and cabaletta to words from an Arabic phrase book ("I am in a valley, and you are in a valley . . ."). It's diverting and spectacular in a rather sweet, good-humored way. And that, despite...