Omar Sharif

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Omar Sharif at the 66th Venice Film Festival 2009

Omar Sharif , also Omar El-Sharif ( Arabic عمر الشريف, DMG ʿUmar aš-Šarīf ), originally Michel Dimitri Chalhoub , (born April 10, 1932 in Alexandria , † July 10, 2015 in Cairo ) was an Egyptian actor from a Lebanese-Syrian family and an internationally known bridge player. His best-known roles were that of Doctor Zhivago in the 1965 film of the same name and that of Sherif Ali Ibn El Kharisch in Lawrence of Arabia from 1962.

Life

Omar Sharif was born in Egypt as a member of the Melkite Greek Catholic minority and was of Syrian - Lebanese origin. He studied mathematics and physics at the University of Cairo and worked in the evening and after the university first in his father's wood shop in the Al Manasra district. Among the young people in the vicinity of his father's business, he was considered an ambitious and, above all, dutiful, elegant young man with a special interest in the fine arts and Western literature. In 1953 he started his acting career under the name Omar el Cherif with a role in the Egyptian film Deadly Revenge (Siraa Fil-Wadi) by Youssef Chahine .

After 1953, joined him, while he took the name Omar El-Sharif, from Christianity to Islam over to 1955, the popular Egyptian actress Faten Hamama to marry what his fame increased abruptly in the Arab world. The couple separated in 1966 and were divorced by mutual agreement in 1974. The marriage has a son named Tarek.

Sharif appeared in numerous Egyptian films until the early 1960s and became known internationally in 1962 when director David Lean gave him an important role in his monumental film Lawrence of Arabia . He played the role of Sherif Ali and was introduced to the action by director Lean in a famous scene: Sherif, coming from the desert horizon, rides for minutes towards the camera. Sharif played here alongside Peter O'Toole , Alec Guinness and Anthony Quinn and was honored with the Golden Globe Award for Best Young Actor and an Oscar nomination. The film made Sharif a sought-after star and earned him roles in international productions such as The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) and Genghis Khan (1965).

David Lean (right) and Sharif filming Doctor Zhivago  (1965)

In 1965, director David Lean gave Sharif the coveted title role in one of the most elaborate film projects of the 1960s, the monumental film Doctor Schiwago , in which Sharif is seen as a young doctor who falls in love with a nurse ( Julie Christie ) against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution . The gigantic success of this classic film (one of the biggest box office hits of the decade) established Sharif as an international top star and heartthrob. He was so big that he was cast as a German Wehrmacht officer in the film Die Nacht der Generale (1967) despite his oriental appearance (here he played again alongside Peter O'Toole). His cast as Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary was similarly daring a year later in the historical film Mayerling .

The musical Funny Girl (1968), in which Sharif played the second leading role alongside Barbra Streisand , was a great success . Shortly after the Six Day War of 1967, the screen romance between the Jewish woman Streisand and the Egyptian Muslim Sharif not only made headlines. She made him persona non grata in Egypt. For almost ten years he could no longer enter his homeland. With films like Che! (1969, with Sharif as Che Guevara ) or Mackenna's Gold (1969) Sharif was unable to build on his earlier successes by the end of the 1960s and finally lost his status as a top-grossing star. In the 1970s, his roles and films became increasingly insignificant. Sharif stated that he had to accept many second-rate film offers because of his passion for gambling, he had high betting debts and big money problems.

Since the 1980s, Sharif was mainly seen in television series, supporting roles, cheap productions and Egyptian films. A later success with critics and audiences he achieved in 2003 with the lead role in the film adaptation of Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt's novel Monsieur Ibrahim and the flowers of the Koran . In later years the actor was dissatisfied with the fact that the audience almost exclusively identified him with the role of Doctor Zhivago and that his other roles were hardly noticed: “For the whole world I am only Dr. Zhivago! "

While he barely found high-profile roles as an actor, Omar Sharif established himself as a professional bridge player and took part in team Olympics several times. In 1987 a VHS tape Play Bridge With Omar Sharif was produced in the United States , with the help of which one could play bridge against Omar Sharif virtually interactively. In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung in December 2003, he stated that he no longer played actively.

Sharif took part in racing with eight horses of his own and, according to his own statements, spent two evenings a week doing this.

In the 19 February 2008 announced that Sharif by a California judge to 318,000 US dollars (217,000 euros had been sentenced) for pain and suffering. In 2005, while drunk, he beat up a Guatemalan parking lot attendant in Beverly Hills who had insisted on being paid in dollars. Instead, Sharif wanted to pay with a 20 euro note. The same message recalled that Sharif had been convicted in France in August 2003 for assaulting police officers. There he was sentenced to one month probation and a fine of the equivalent of US $ 1,700.

On May 23, 2015, Sharif's son Tarek Sharif stated in an interview in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that his father had Alzheimer's disease . This was confirmed by Sharif's agents to the AP press agency on May 25, 2015. Omar Sharif died of a heart attack on July 10, 2015 at the age of 83 in Cairo .

Filmography

Awards

Web links

Commons : Omar Sharif  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Omar Sharif died at 83. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . July 10, 2015, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  2. ↑ a b Hans-Michael Ehl: Dr. Schiwago turns 80. In: DRadio Wissen. April 10, 2012, archived from the original on September 21, 2013 ; Retrieved July 10, 2015 .
  3. ↑ Omar Sharif - Biography. In: New York Times . Retrieved July 10, 2015 .
  4. ^ Omar Sharif: Overview. In: movies.msn.com. 2008, archived from the original on June 29, 2008 ; accessed on July 10, 2015 .
  5. ↑ Jörg Taszman: Obituary: Jews, Russians, and Mongols. In: juedische-allgemeine.de. Jüdische Allgemeine , July 16, 2015, accessed April 10, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Egypt's greatest actor turns 80. A look back at a career with a lot of shadows and little bright light. In: couchfunk.de. April 10, 2012, archived from the original on September 21, 2013 ; Retrieved July 10, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Christopher Keil: SZ interview - Now I'm like a child. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . May 11, 2010, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Doctor Zhivago distributes. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . AP , May 17, 2010, accessed July 10, 2015 .
  9. ↑ Omar Sharif, star of Lawrence of Arabia, has Alzheimer's agent. In: The Guardian . AP , May 25, 2015, accessed July 10, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Sharif, Omar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chalhoub, Maechel (real name); Chalhoub, Michael; El-Sharif, Omar; Cherif, Omar el
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Egyptian actor
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Alexandria , Egypt
DATE OF DEATH July 10, 2015
Place of death Cairo , Egypt