Omar Sharif, the Egyptian-born film actor who starred in such timeless classics such as Doctor Zhivago, The Night of the Generals and Lawrence of Arabia, died of a heart attack on Friday at a hospital in Cairo, according to his longtime agent Steve Kenis. Sharif was 83 years old.
Sharif was born Michel Demitri Shalhoub on April 10, 1932 in Alexandria, Egypt. His father, Joseph Shalhoub, worked as a lumber merchant, while his mother, Claire Saada, was a well-known society hostess in their native country.
Despite his Syrian and Lebanese lineage, young Shalhoub was raised a Roman Catholic by his family, and he was educated in Alexandria's Victoria College. He also received a degree in physics and mathematics from Cairo University before joining his father's lumber business.
After working under his father, Shalhoub entered the local show business and became one of Egypt's prominent stars at the time. His first big break came when he was cast Egyptian film Siraa Fil-Wadi (The Blazing Sun) in 1953, opposite his future wife, the Egyptian star Faten Hamama.
Shalhoub converted to Islam to marry Hamama, and he took on his now famous name Omar al-Sharif. While the couple eventually divorced in 1974, they had one child, Tarek Sharif, who went on to portray young Zhivago in the 1965 film Doctor Zhivago.
The decade of the 1960s proved to be the best for the Egyptian actor as Sharif became more prominent, especially among Hollywood circles.
His casting of the Arab warrior Sherif Ali in British director David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962) propelled Sharif to greater heights in his career. His memorable portrayal of the real-life Arabian hero opposite Peter O'Toole's T. E. Lawrence earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Lawrence of Arabia was soon followed by a string of other international hits, including The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1965), Genghis Khan (1965), Doctor Zhivago (1965) and The Night of the Generals (1967).
While there were other successful films in Sharif's long illustrious career, his performance in Doctor Zhivago was considered to be his best. He played the role of the eponymous Zhivago, whose ill-fated love affair with married woman, played by British actress Julie Christie, leads him to a life of violence.
Throughout his career, Sharif was known to capture the hearts of female audiences with his darkly handsome and commanding presence on the movie screen. He was also famous for his ability to speak different languages such as English, French, Italian, Spanish, Greek and Arabic.
Some of Sharif's later films included Catherine the Great (1995), with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Monsieur Ibrahim (2003) and Hidalgo (2004), with Viggo Mortensen of The Lord of the Rings fame.
