[1] His father was appointed minister in the era of Khedive Ismail, and died when Zaki was still a young boy.

He was brought up by a friend of his father, Mustafa Nageeb, the father of the Egyptian artist Soliman Nageeb (Arabic: سليمان نجيب (1892–1955), where a strong relationship started between him and some artists of the theater at that time, including fellow actor Abdel Wareth Assar (1894–1982).

Rostom's best known roles include an aristocrat tyrant husband in the Egyptian adaptation of Anna Karenina; Ezz El Dine Zulficar's The River of Love (1960), a powerful brutal landlord in Youssef Chahine's Struggle in the Valley (1954), a bully merchant opposite Farid Shawki in The Tough (1957), a sneaky drug lord in Pier No.

He was chosen by the Paris Match French magazine in the mid 1940s as one of the best ten international actors.

He lived in isolation and spent his time reading until he suffered a heart attack and died on February 16 of 1972 at the age of 68 years.