The eternal Doctor Zhivago – Hamburger Abendblatt

  11:07:15
 
 

 By Volker Behrens

 The charismatic actor Omar Sharif died with 83 years in Cairo heart disease

                 Hamburg. These Eyes! He had particularly impressed the women. Now he has them closed forever. Omar Sharif was probably the most famous actor in Egypt. He became world famous with his roles in two big melodramas: “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Doctor Zhivago”. In the cinema, the charismatic performer has often been the flagship Arabs and was even able to celebrate successes in Hollywood. On Friday, he died in Cairo in a heart attack. He was 83 years old.

This is the name! Peter O’Toole, with the Sharif along “Lawrence of Arabia” turned, found him impossible. “No one can really say Omar Sharif,” he teased and therefore called his friend and colleague on the set just Freddy. Was born the later actor under the name Michael Shalhoub. Only when he converted to Islam from Catholicism later, he called himself Omar al-Sharif.

Little hinted at the beginning of his career suggests that he would become an artist. The son of a timber merchant studied after high school at Cairo University mathematics and physics and took a degree in both subjects. Then he climbed into the family once a business. Wood instead of celluloid.

Before reüssierte in English-language films, however, he was already a star in his Egyptian homeland, had played there in 20 films. DC in his debut “Deadly Revenge” he played in 1953 at the side of his wife Faten Hamama later. His international career came later benefited its multilingualism. He was alongside Arabic, English, Spanish, Greek, French and Italian speaking.

Sharif was thoroughly a player, not just in front of the camera. Infamous he was looking for his similar relationship to Bridge game. He arranged his rotation dates around tournaments, was considered one of the world’s best players. He wrote a bridge column for the “Chicago Tribune”, published books on bridge and brought back in 1992 the computer game “Omar Sharif Bridge” on the market. To probation, he was sentenced as a police officer he dealt a headbutt in a casino who would arbitrate in a dispute between him and a croupier. “That made me in France a hero. To give a policeman a Sap, the dream of every Frenchman,” he claimed.

In 2006, he changed his life from the ground up and said “I wanted to no longer be a slave any passions beyond the Acting I had too many passions:.. Bridge, horses, gambling I wanted to live a different life, and be more with my family, because I have not given her enough time.”

With his wife, from whom he was divorced in 1974, he had his son Tarek Sharif. One of his two grandsons, Omar Sharif Junior, grandfather prophesied a great acting career.

In 2003, Omar Sharif played again a role that earned him great awards. For his part as a senior storekeeper in “Monsieur Ibrahim and the Flowers of the Koran”, he won the award for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival and a César, the highest French film award.

1992 had he undergo because of a heart attack bypass surgery. Until then, he had smoked up to 100 cigarettes per day. He gave up after that. It was last turned quiet around him. In 2012, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, as did his son announced.

Sharif’s autobiography is tellingly named “The Eternal Male” – the eternal man. The last sentence reads it: “In fact, I would like that today as yesterday is … Is that too much wanted?” It seems today unfortunately quite so.