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You might not know who Yaya is, but Leonardo DiCaprio does – and so do George Clooney and Simon Cowell. Sherif Awad talks to the “handyman to the stars”
He distances himself from the paparazzi pack, who he condemns for their aggressive hounding. The Egyptian has his own approach to wooing the stars: he rewards them with treats. He has a stock of toy leather camels, brass Nefertiti heads and blue-painted plaster scarabs, all bought in Cairo’s Khan al-Khalili bazaar. “When I first met Tom Cruise, I gave him a camel hedeya [gift] and we had our photograph taken together. Two years later, when he was dating Penélope Cruz, I met him again and he remembered me and signed my photo.”
The signed Cruise photo is one in a bulging scrapbook of nearly 1,600 autographed images that Yaya files under specific headings: “The Heavyweights” section includes Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, and director Martin Scorsese, while “Sports” has Yaya pictured with Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi, Mohammad Ali and George Foreman, plus wrestler Hulk Hogan (“He told me ‘Yaya, you’re so funny’. He loves me.”). Sections are meticulously, even obsessively, organised: Matt Damon’s photo is next to his friend Ben Affleck and a snap of Yaya with director Tony Scott lines up alongside a snap of Yaya with Tony’s equally famous director brother Ridley. Yaya is better on faces than names: “This boy was with Bruce Willis in Sixty Seconds and he used to tell him about dead people [Haley Joel Osment, child star of The Sixth Sense]. And this is the guy with the big nose who won the Oscar [Adrien Brody, star of The Pianist].”
Born in the Cleopatra al-Mahata neighbourhood of Alexandria, Yehia Mohammed, an only child, was brought up by his mother after his father abandoned the family. He dropped out of school in the sixth grade to earn money working as a plumber, electrician and mechanic. A chance meeting with a wealthy businessman then offered the young Alexandrian a way out of poverty after he was employed as a mechanic on a proposed theme park in Jeddah. With his improved salary, Yaya was able to buy his first camera, a Nikon, and he shot his first celebrity while on a trip to Egypt to visit his mother: Alexandrian-born Demis Roussos, who was in town for a special homecoming performance.
A stint as a mechanic on his employer’s yacht introduced Yaya to Nice, Cannes and Saint-Tropez, and a hitherto unseen world. Moored at Cannes, Yaya spotted one his favourite stars, Paul McCartney, in a limousine. The Egyptian ambled over to the car, wearing his trademark expectant smile, and McCartney rolled down the window and shook his hand for what remains one of Yaya’s most treasured pictures.
In 1980, he attended his first Cannes Film Festival. “There was this director, [Francis Ford] Coppola. You know, Nicolas’s [Cage] uncle?” says Yaya. “He was a very nice man. I went up to him and asked him if I could take a picture with him. Then he started to say something to me, but my English was really bad at the time. I told him ‘I don’t speak English’, but he was still talking. He said, ‘I want you in a film.’ Honestly! If you look at the picture, you’ll see he’s looking at me while I look straight at the camera. He’s my friend, you know.”
In 1996, after more than a decade working in Saudi Arabia – during which time he got married and had two sons – Yaya emigrated to the United States with the intention of setting up his own handyman business. “The first celebrity I spotted in America was Anthony Quinn and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I went completely crazy,” he says. So, settled in LA, he began his double life: “I’d wear my overalls and do my maintenance rounds all over town, but as soon as that was done, I’d change my clothes, grab my camera and go out looking for stars.”
Knowing where to find his quarry is not problem: among Yaya’s regular maintenance clients are Mr Chow in Beverly Hills and AGO on Melrose Place, both noted celebrity haunts. “I met Sean Penn at Mr Chow and told him, ‘You’re my favourite actor!’” says Yaya. “But he said, ‘I’ve seen you on TV and you say that to everybody!’ and I said I only said that to Pacino and De Niro.” What does the manager of Mr Chow think of his handyman fraternising with his distinguished diners? “He wants to publish a book of my pictures.”
In a van painted with the legend “Handyman To The Stars”, Yaya does house calls, which also gain him access to more subjects for his scrapbook. “I was in Raquel Welch’s house doing some fixing. She’s stingy though and I don’t think I’ll be going there again,” he says. He’s also a regular presence at film premieres, jostling for space with the pro photographers, but still managing to stand out from the pack. “I saw Brett Ratner, the director of the Rush Hour films. When I didn’t say hello he asked me why I was ignoring him, so I said, ‘well, you didn’t keep your promise’. He had promised me a role in Rush Hour 3.”
Ask about Yaya’s favourites and he doesn’t hesitate: Leonardo DiCaprio. “He runs away from photographers, but he always hugs me and says hello,” he says. “I have a picture of him accepting my gift of a papyrus. He loved it! He asked me to get him a full-size mummy next time.” Other favourites are more surprising: “Simon [Cowell] – you know from American Idol? He also loves me a lot.”
It’s not all unqualified adoration, though. According to Yaya, Bruce Willis is foul-mouthed (“He told me, ‘what the **** do you want?’”), Ringo Starr is “not nice” and Tobey Maguire “thinks he is a big man”. Mel Gibson, on the other hand, is just plain rude: “I gave him a very nice plate. But he took it, jumped into his limo and flew away!”
Suddenly, after 20 minutes of fast-flowing gossip and judgment passed on Hollywood’s elite, Yaya apologises – he has to rush. He’s late for a premiere. “It’s Eddie Murphy. You know, the talking donkey?”
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