From early on, Umm Kulthum herself took charge of managing her career. Danielson writes, “She started producing her own concerts in the early 1930s without an intermediary agent. She negotiated theater rental and presumably arranged for advertisements as well” (Danielson, 80). In her negotiations, Umm Kulthum typically drove a hard bargain: “Like the most successful of the female entertainers, she was a shrewd business person. She was not merely a pawn of commercial businesses…. Like a number of her colleagues, she obtained large fees for her performances, probably the most money paid to any singer in Egypt. She was demanding in contractual negotiations and financial arrangements. She insisted on receiving higher pay than others and was not afraid of being difficult or saying no” (196).
Umm Kalthoum in the film “Fatma”
She also produced and acted in films which had similar romantic themes as her songs, including “exotic settings from Arab history, clearly drawn lies of good and evil, and resolutions in favor of goodness and justice”(88). By this time, Umm Kulthum was so well-known that despite her inexperience with acting, she was given great authority over the creative decisions in her films.
Umm Kulthum presented herself as a respectable figure, and then, in her speech, she continued that presentation, so that she didn’t invite any sort of rowdy, raucous response that might have worked against her image of respectability. Keeping the press away from her personal life was another critical tool in maintaining some distance, appearing as a singer, and only a singer… She looked more like a respectable woman who was a public figure then she did an entertainer. And these things all helped a great deal in producing a public persona that could occupy public space comfortably.