Goodbye to Omar Sharif

Last month we learnt about the demise of Omar Sharif, an actor whose name and work may be unknown to the youngest viewers. Omar Sharif, whose real name was Michel Demitri Shalhoub, died of a heart attack at the age of 83. He was born in Alexandria – Egypt – and he belonged to a well-off family; he had had an essentially European education which enabled him to get the role of Sherif Ali as the director of Lawrence of Arabia – David Lean – needed Arab actors who could speak English. Apparently Lean came across a photo of the actor and he was so impressed by the stunning appearance of Sharif that he called him immediately. Sharif had already made quite a lot of films in his own country and was already a star in Egypt but thanks to the role of Sherif Ali, he received an Oscar nomination and two Golden Globe Awards. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) became a worldwide success and David Lean offered him the leading role of his next film: Doctor Zhivago (1965). Omar Sharif, who was reluctant to play the role of an Arab in all his films, played the part of a Russian physician caught up in the Russian Revolution, a character portrayed by Boris Pasternak in his 1957 novel.  Julie Christie played opposite Sharif in this film and both made one of the most attractive couples on the screen. (By the way, the story is set in Russia but the film was actually shot in Spain, in fact, Lawrence of Arabia was also mainly shot in Spain.) Omar Sharif won his third Golden Globe award for his role of Doctor Zhivago in 1966 and he managed to play roles that were not only related to his Arab background but he somehow specialised in playing real-life figures such as Genghis Khan or Che Guevara. He worked with some of the most important film-makers during his lifetime and he took part in numerous films until his roles became increasingly sporadic. In 2003 he won the Cesar – the French equivalent of the Oscar – for his role of a Muslim shopkeeper who adopts a Jewish boy in Monsieur Ibrahim (2003). Paying tribute to Omar Sharif means recalling the epic stories of the golden age of Hollywood and realising how few actors are still witnesses of that amazing period. If you are not acquainted with Omar Sharif´s roles, I encourage you to watch Doctor Zhivago, or at least, to listen to its soundtrack, one of the most beautiful soundtracks in the history of cinema.