BEIRUT: Lebanese singer and actress Sabah, an icon of Arab music, died on Wednesday after a career that spanned over six-decades. She was 87.

The diva was famous across the Arab world for her powerful voice, musical talent and joyful brazenness and is considered among the last of the “giants”.

Sabah, whose real name was Jeanette Feghali, first came to prominence in the 1950s as a singer and actress in Egyptian movies. Ultimately, she participated in 25 plays, four radio musicals, 85 films and sang 3,000 songs.

Beloved for her powerful voice and brazen in the conservative Arab world for her multiple marriages, Lebanese singer, actress and entertainer Sabah never seemed far from the limelight during her six-decade career. And even while playfully mocked in her later years for clinging to youth through plastic surgeries, flings with far-younger men and garish outfits, Sabah remained cherished for her love of life and positive outlook even into old age.

“I’m proud that I’m a village girl but I had a lot of ambition,” Sabah once said in 2008.

A peroxide-blond with a throaty laugh and playful smile, she took the stage name Sabah, Arabic for morning. Her many other nicknames included shahroura, Arabic for singing bird, and the Sabbouha, a play on Sabah that millions of fan used for her across the Middle East. Others simply called her al-Ustura, or the Legend.

Published in Dawn, November 27th, 2014