The
Egyptian-born actor suffered a heart attack this afternoon in Cairo,
according to his agent, Steve Kenis. Egyptian state media report that
Sharif had been in the hospital for a month.
Antonio Banderas, who starred with Sharif in 1999's "The 13th Warrior," expressed his sorrow on Twitter.
"My great friend Omar Sharif has passed away. I will always miss him. He was one of the best," Banderas posted.
In
his prime, Sharif -- with his dark eyes, debonair demeanor and exotic
accent -- was considered one of the most handsome men on the planet, his
looks getting as much attention as his acting ability.
"When
he walked on the 'Zhivago' set in Spain, I took one look and said, 'I
can't act with that man. He's too gorgeous!' " one of his "Zhivago"
co-stars, Geraldine Chaplin, told The New York Times in 1965.
In the '90s, he had both a perfume and a brand of cigarettes named after him.
But
he could also be a formidable actor, earning an Oscar nomination for
his supporting role in "Lawrence of Arabia" and winning Golden Globes
for it and "Zhivago."
Sharif was already an established star in
the Middle East when he was cast in the role as Sherif Ali Ibn El Karish
in director David Lean's epic 1962 production of "Arabia." The film,
which was also the movie debut of Peter O'Toole, won seven Oscars,
including best picture, and is still considered one of the greatest of
all time.
It made Sharif a worldwide name, about which he had mixed feelings, he said in 1995.
"I
don't know if I wouldn't have been a happier person if I had never even
made 'Lawrence of Arabia' or become internationally famous," he said.
"I was in Egypt. I had a home. I had a wife. I had a kid. I might have
had more. It might have been good. But then again, it might have been
terrible, I don't know."
In 'the Hollywood of the Middle East'
Sharif
was born Michael Demitri Shalhoub in Alexandria, Egypt, on April 10,
1932. He grew up in Cairo, the son of a lumber merchant.
He
wanted to be an actor from a young age and performed in theatrical
productions as a teenager. In his early 20s, he was cast in an Egyptian
film opposite actress Faten Hamama. The 1954 film, whose Arabic title
translates to "Struggle in the Valley," made him a star; the next year,
Hamama became his wife. The two were married until 1974.
In
a 2007 interview with CNN, he remembered a thriving industry.
"When
I started in the Egyptian film industry, we used to produce about 120
films a year," he recalled. "All the Arab(ic)-speaking films came from
Egypt. We were the Hollywood of the Middle East."
In
the early '60s, Lean cast him in "Lawrence." Originally, Sharif had a
different role, but when Lean was unable to get his other choices --
including Horst Buchholz and Alain Delon -- Sharif won the part of
Sherif Ali. His slow-building entrance, from a far-off dot in the desert
distance in Lean's widescreen masterpiece, is one of the most arresting
in cinema.
Lean could be difficult, Sharif said, but the pair got along fine.
"He
hated actors, but he loved me. I don't know why, because I didn't know
myself what I was going to do, and the first shot I had to make, I spent
the whole night to practice it for the next day -- my first shot in the
film. And he knew about this, and he loved me for it,"
he told NPR in 2012.
Lean cast Sharif again in his next epic,
1965's "Doctor Zhivago." This time he had the lead, as an altruistic
Russian physician who romances a wife (Chaplin) and a lover (Julie
Christie) before and after the Russian Revolution.
"Sharif, largely through expressions of indignation, compassion and tenderness, makes the character very believable,"
wrote Variety's A.D. Murphy.
The
film was an even bigger hit than "Arabia," making more than $100
million at the box office -- at a time when that was an almost
unbelievable sum -- and finishing second to "The Sound of Music" for the
year. Though nominated for 10 Academy Awards, it was also an also-ran
to "Music" for best picture.
Moving to bridge
However,
Sharif, now one of the biggest stars in the world, had just one more
notable hit: 1968's "Funny Girl," opposite Barbra Streisand. The film
brought him some woe; his films were banned in Egypt because of his
onscreen relationship with Streisand, a Jewish woman.
As
the '60s turned into the '70s, he had started growing indifferent to
acting. Though there were some good turns -- 1974's "The Tamarind Seed"
and 1975's "Funny Lady" both did respectably -- others were outright
bombs.
One film, 1969's "Che!" in which
he played Che Guevara, was named as one of the "50 Worst Films of All
Time" in a 1977 book. He also appeared in 1980's "Oh Heavenly Dog" and
1981's "Inchon."
"Only bad films since 1972, (197)3. I'm thinking of really bad,"
he told the UK's Guardian.
"To learn bad dialogue is so difficult and so boring, and to work with a
stupid director who tells you to do the wrong thing, et cetera, it's
just unbearable."
He admitted that, by
then, he was putting more interest into his other passion: the card
game bridge, at which he was an expert player. He wrote a regular
column, wrote books and hosted a computer video about the game.
"I
refused in my life many films because they happened at the same time as
an important tournament," he told the Guardian. Not that he was always
happy with that choice, calling it "stupid."
He
still popped up in occasional productions. He was in the parody "Top
Secret!" created by the "Airplane!" team and appeared as the Sorcerer in
a production of "Gulliver's Travels."
He
won a Cesar -- the French Oscar -- for 2003's "Monsieur Ibrahim," a
French film about a Muslim who becomes friends with a young Jew.
"I
thought it was the right moment to make it, to make a little statement
about loving each other and being able to live with each other," he told
the Guardian.
His life wasn't the
romantic lark his image suggested. He acknowledged some issues with
gambling -- the Guardian noted that he lost £200,000 in one 2003
experience that concluded with Sharif head-butting a police officer --
and
told Guernica magazine in 1996 that he lived a "sedate" life.
"I don't go out a lot," he said. "I've always done it. I've never had a riotous-living sort of life."
Romantic? That's what he aspired to, he said.
"It's
a beautiful word," he said. "I like it. I think probably I'm
sentimental, which is not a beautiful word, but I want to graduate to
being romantic."
Sharif is survived by a son, Tarek, and two grandchildren. He acknowledged a second son out of wedlock in various interviews
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