The Hollywood heartthrob Omar Sharif (born Michel Chalhoub in Alexandria to Lebanese-Syrian Christians and converted to Islam on marrying his first female lead, Faten Hamama) is no more. Born to act rather than work in his father’s lumber mill, Sharif was an instant hit when he got his big break in English cinema in a dramatic entrance in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. His eponymous portrayal of Dr Zhivago will ring a bell in cineastes when all-time classics are discussed.
Sharif was the pride of the rest of the world while Hollywood, the real cinema of those early days when most other film industries were in their infancy, considered him a “foreigner”, but one with the rakish good looks and the accent to be considered a Rudolf Valentino kind of figure. Where the Egyptian star struggled the most was in sustaining a career that had taken off to dizzy heights so instantly. Given his playboy lifestyle and his penchant to gamble it came as no surprise that he had to take on even minor roles to sustain himself later in a career that was virtually downhill from that phenomenal start.
It is a pity that a polygot like him lost to Alzheimer’s, a disease that has no cure yet. The world would like to remember Sharif as the captivating figure with the wicked smile that made women weak in the knees, like his leading ladies with most of whom he was said to have fallen in love.
