Fatiha Berber was born in the Casbah of Algiers.
[1] Her family came from Legata in the Boumerdès Province of Northern Algeria.
[2] In the late 1950s she sang with the orchestra of Meriem Fekkaï, before studying drama at the Conservatory of Algiers.
The director Mustapha Gribi gave her her first role, in an adaptation of Molière, Les femmes savantes.
She took part in Algeria's National Liberation struggle.