Born to a Coptic Orthodox family in Minya Governorate, she moved to Cairo to pursue her acting career and changed her name to Sanaa Gamil.

One of her most notable roles was Nefisah in front of Omar Sharif in the movie Bidaya wa nihaya (A Beginning and an End) directed by Salah Abouseif in 1960. The movie was based on a novel with the same name by the Nobel Prize winner Naguib Mahfouz. Sanaa Gamil won the best supporting actress award at the Moscow Film Festival in 1961 for her role in this movie.

Not only a movie actress, but more importantly one of the best Egyptian theater actresses. She has also played a number of roles on the French Stage for La Comedie Francaise.

She was married to the famous Egyptian journalist Louis Greiss and had no children.

She also acted in a number of TV series like Oyoun (Eyes) with Fuad Al Mohandes, and in a number of plays such as The Visit with Gamil Rateb