(MENAFN- Arab Times) Egyptian-born film legend Omar Sharif, who died Friday aged 83, captivated audiences worldwide for more than half a century, but will forever be remembered as the eponymous "Doctor Zhivago". The winner of two Golden Globe awards and an Oscar nomination for his role as Sherif Ali in David Lean's 1962 epic "Lawrence of Arabia", Sharif was known for his debonair style, raffish good looks and often mischievous joie de vivre.
He died in Cairo of a heart attack, his agent Steve Kenis said in London, after a struggle with Alzheimer's disease. Close friend and Egypt's former antiquities minister Zahi Hawwas said Sharif died in an upmarket Cairo clinic where he had been under treatment for the past month.
"His psychological state had deteriorated, he wasn't eating or drinking," Hawwas told AFP.
Tributes poured in after the news of Sharif's death, with Hollywood star Antonio Banderas calling him "a great storyteller, a loyal friend and a wise spirit".
"I will always miss him. He was one of the best," he tweeted of the Egyptian star, who was fluent in six languages and also famous for his skills at playing the card game bridge.
Italian actress Claudia Cardinale, who acted with Sharif in Jacques Baratier's 1958 film "Goha," expressed her "great sadness" while renowned Egyptian actress Youssra said she felt "awful".
"I just lost (one) of the best people in my life, I feel so lost and unhappy and helpless," she told AFP.
The actor's grandson, Omar Sharif Jr, posted on Twitter: "I join my family in thanking everyone for the global outpouring of prayers and support we've been receiving. I will miss my grandfather dearly."
Sharif began acting in the 1950s and his most high-profile roles were in the 1960s when he won an Oscar nomination for "Lawrence of Arabia" and Golden Globes for the same film and for "Doctor Zhivago".
His role in "Lawrence of Arabia" as Sharif Ali, an Arab chief enlisted by Peter O'Toole's T.E. Lawrence in Britain's fight against the Turks in World War I, propelled him to stardom, setting the stage for an even higher profile role in David Lean's subsequent release, "Doctor Zhivago".
Sharif played the hero in the epic adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel of tortured passions during the Russian Revolution, with his real-life son Tarek playing his younger self.
Fluent
The actor, fluent in Arabic, English, French, Greek, Italian and Spanish, went on to star in many films and television productions, including alongside Barbra Streisand in 1968's "Funny Girl".
"He was handsome, sophisticated and charming. He was a proud Egyptian," the American star said in a post on Facebook.
"I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to work with Omar, and I'm profoundly sad to hear of his passing."
Sharif kept working over the following decades, often in television movies, and in later years became equally renowned for his prowess as a bridge player and owner of thoroughbred racehorses.
"I'd rather be playing bridge than making a bad movie," he once said, before announcing in 2006 that he had given up the game.
Sharif made something of a comeback in 2003 in the title role of the French film "Monsieur Ibrahim", playing an elderly Muslim shopkeeper.
Award
The performance won him a best actor award at the Venice Film Festival and the best actor Cesar, France's equivalent of an Oscar.
Born Michel Demitri Shalhoub on April 10, 1932 in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria - at the time a cosmopolitan hub - to parents of Syrian and Lebanese extraction, he was raised a Catholic.
He studied at Alexandria's Victoria College before gaining a degree in mathematics and physics from Cairo University.
He joined his father's lumber business, but the acting bug had taken hold while he was studying, and in 1954 he made his silver screen debut in the Egyptian film "Siraa Fil-Wadi" ("The Blazing Sun") by Youssef Chahine.
The movie's romantic intrigue was echoed off screen as he married the leading lady, famed Egyptian actress Faten Hamama, converting to Islam and renaming himself Omar Sharif.
They had one son, Tarek, before divorcing in 1974. Hamama died in January 2015, with Sharif saying she was the only woman he had ever loved.
Sharif never remarried, but had another son, Robin, from a brief relationship with Italian journalist Lula De Luca.
He lived between France, Italy and the United States, before settling again in Egypt.
His playboy lifestyle of fine hotels, casinos and restaurants from California to the Cote d'Azur was not without its brushes with controversy.
In August 2003, he received a one-month sentence and a fine for headbutting a policeman outside a Paris casino. He was unrepentant, saying: "It made me the hero of the whole of France. To head-butt a cop is the dream of every Frenchman."
He was also ordered to take an anger management course by a California court in 2005, after punching a parking attendant.
Sharif had a triple heart bypass in 1992 and suffered a mild heart attack in 1994, according to the IMDb movie database website. The 100-cigarettes-a-day smoker quit after the operation.
In January 2011, during Egypt's popular uprising Sharif called for then president Hosni Mubarak to stand down, while at the same time expressing doubts about the Muslim Brotherhood.
Sharif first emerges as a speck in the distance in the shimmering desert sand. He draws closer, a black-robed figure on a trotting camel, until he finally dismounts, pulling aside his scarf to reveal his dark eyes and a disarming smile framed by his thin mustache.
When director David Lean cast him in 1962's "Lawrence of Arabia," Sharif was already the biggest heartthrob in his homeland, where he played brooding, romantic heroes in multiple films in the 1950s - and was married to Egyptian cinema's reigning screen beauty. But he was a virtual unknown elsewhere.
He wasn't Lean's first choice to play Sherif Ali, the tribal leader with whom Peter O'Toole's T.E. Lawrence teams up to help lead the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. Lean had hired another actor but dropped him because his eyes weren't the right color. The film's producer, Sam Spiegel, went to Cairo to search for a replacement and found Sharif. After passing a screen test that proved he was fluent in English, he got the job.
The film brought him a supporting-actor Oscar nomination. His international stardom was cemented three years later by his starring turn in another sweeping historical epic by Lean, "Doctor Zhivago."
Though he had over 100 films to his credit, "Doctor Zhivago" was considered his Hollywood classic. The Russian doctor-poet Zhivago makes his way through the upheaval of World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution, guided by his devotion to his art and to his doomed love for Lara, played by Julie Christie.
Still, Sharif never thought it was as good as it could have been.
"It's sentimental. Too much of that music," he once said, referring to Maurice Jarre's luscious Oscar-winning score.
Although Sharif never achieved that level of success again, he remained a sought-after actor for many years, able to play different nationalities.
He was Argentine-born revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara in "Che!", Italian Marco Polo in "Marco the Magnificent" and Mongol leader Genghis Khan in "Genghis Khan." He was a German officer in "The Night of the Generals," an Austrian prince in "Mayerling" and a Mexican outlaw in "Mackenna's Gold."
He was also the Jewish gambler Nick Arnstein opposite Barbra Streisand's Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl." The 1968 film was banned in his native Egypt because he was cast as a Jew.
"He was handsome, sophisticated and charming. He was a proud Egyptian and in some people's eyes," Streisand said in a statement. She said the Funny Girl casting was controversial but "the romantic chemistry between Nicky Arnstein and Fanny Brice transcended stereotypes and prejudice."
"I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to work with Omar, and I'm profoundly sad to hear of his passing," she said.
In his middle years Sharif began appearing in such films as "The Pink Panther Strikes Again," ''Oh Heavenly Dog!," and others he dismissed as "rubbish."
The drought lasted so long that finally, beginning in the late 1990s, Sharif began declining all film offers.
"I lost my self-respect and dignity," he told a reporter in 2004. "Even my grandchildren were making fun of me. 'Grandpa, that was really bad. And this one? It's worse.'"
He had something of a revival. In 2003, he portrayed a Muslim shopkeeper in Paris who adopts a Jewish boy in the French film "Monsieur Ibrahim," winning him a Cesar, the French equivalent of the Oscar.
Yousra, Egypt's biggest actress for much of the past 30 years and a close friend of Sharif, compared him to a "clean-cut" diamond.
"He was a phenomena; a one of a kind. Everyone had a dream to be like Omar Sharif. No one will be like him," she told the AP on Friday.
Sharif spent much of his later years in at a hotel in Cairo and at the Royal Moncean Hotel in Paris.
"When you live alone and you're not young, it's good to live in a hotel," he told a reporter in 2005. "If you feel lonely, you can go down to the bar." He quit gambling, saying he needed to ensure he had enough money.
Sharif's son Tarek revealed in May that his father had Alzheimer's. In fact, he'd been suffering from the disease for three years, said Zahi Hawass, the former chief of Egypt's antiquities administration who was a close friend of Sharif.
Speaking to the AP on Friday, Hawass said that when he told him Hamama died in January, Sharif asked him, "Faten who?" Hawass said. Sharif was moved to a Cairo hospital a month ago and had grown increasingly depressed, refusing food or water the past several days.
In a 2003 interview with the AP, Sharif struck a wistful note about how "Lawrence of Arabia" vaulted him to fame.
It will always be a great film, he said. But "it separated me from my wife, from my family " That was it, the end of our wedding."
"I might have been happier having stayed an Egyptian film star."
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.