Editing Dalida (section)

=== Modelling, acting ===

In her teen years, Gigliotti developed an interest in acting due to her uncle's job as a projectionist for a local cinema, and often participated in school performances at the end of the semester. She graduated in 1951, and began working as a [[copy typist]] in a pharmaceutical company the same year. While required to work to financially help her family, Gigliotti still had acting ambitions.

Shortly thereafter, her best friend Miranda encouraged her to compete in Miss Ondine, a minor Cairo beauty pageant which she entered on the assurance that it was just for fun and that her mother would not find out. When Gigliotti unexpectedly won second prize and Miranda won second runner-up, they were photographed and the photographs were published in newspapers {{lang|fr|Le journal d'Égypte}} and {{lang|fr|Le progrès égyptien}}. The next day, when her mother found out, she forcibly cut Gigliotti's hair short. Eventually, her mother relented and Gigliotti left her job to start modelling for Donna, a Cairo-based fashion house.<ref name="Archived copy">{{cite web|url=http://www.rfimusique.com/siteen/biographie/biographie_6177.asp |title=Biographie 6177  |access-date=5 June 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060519054443/http://www.rfimusique.com/siteEn/biographie/biographie_6177.asp |archive-date=19 May 2006}}</ref>

Three [[Cinema of Egypt|Egyptian film]] directors cast Gigliotti in their productions: [[Marco de Gastyne]] cast her in ''The Mask of Tutankhamun'' (1954) and [[Niazi Mostafa]] cast her in a supporting role in ''[[A Glass and a Cigarette]]'' (1954),<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0271179/|title=A Cigarette and a Glass|date=11 September 1955|via=www.imdb.com}}</ref> on posters for which she appears with her newly adopted stage name Dalila because, as she explained in 1968, "it was a very frequent name in Egypt and I liked it a lot."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ina.fr/video/I06261352 |title=Dalida à propos du nom Dalida et de son premier play-back – Vidéo |language=fr|publisher=Ina.fr |date=1 January 1970 |access-date=13 August 2018}}</ref>