Arts

HOMMAGE TO EGYPTIAN LEGEND OMAR SHARIF WHO DIED JULY 10TH, 2015 - AGE 83

AT MAC MAHON THEATER IN PARIS


Omar Sharif (Source: Wikipedia)
FUNNY GIRL Omar Sharif & Barbra Streisand - 1968
(Source: Wikipedia)
USPA NEWS - The Theater Mac Mahon in Pari his giving an Hommage to the Egyptian Legend Omar Sharif who died at the age of 83, July 10th, 2015. The tribute will last up to September 22, 2015. As a young man growing up in Alexandria, he became one of the great international stars...
The Theater Mac Mahon in Pari his giving an Hommage to the Egyptian Legend Omar Sharif who died at the age of 83, July 10th, 2015. The tribute will last up to September 22, 2015. As a young man growing up in Alexandria, he became one of the great international stars, famed for his good looks and a world-weary romanticism with particular appeal to women, who swooned over him in his signature role in Doctor Zhivago (1965).
The acclaimed Egyptian director Youssef Chahine tapped him to star in Sira` Fi al-Wadi (1953), which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival as The Blazing Sky.

Sharif´s fame brought him to the attention of director David Lean, who was planning to shoot his epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) in the Middle East. He was cast in a small role as T.E. Lawrence´s guide, then shifted to the key part of Sherif Ali, who makes a grand entrance, shooting the guide dead and later befriending the British officer, played by Peter O´Toole in his first significant movie.
This performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, Motion Picture, as well as a shared Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year, Actor.

In 1965, Omar Sharif reunited with Lean in order to play the title role in the epic love story Doctor Zhivago (1965), an adaptation of Boris Pasternak's 1957 novel, which was banned in the USSR for 30 years.

Omar Sharif was also acclaimed for his portrayal of Nicky Arnstein in Funny Girl (1968). He portrayed the husband of Fanny Brice, played by Barbra Streisand in her first film role.
Among Sharif's other films were the western Mackenna's Gold (1969), playing an outlaw opposite Gregory Peck; the thriller Juggernaut (1974), which co-starred Richard Harris, and the romantic drama The Tamarind Seed (1974), co-starring Julie Andrews, and directed by Blake Edwards. Sharif also contributed comic cameo performances in Edwards' The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) and in the 1984 spy-film spoof Top Secret! In 2003, he received acclaim for his leading role in Monsieur Ibrahim, a French-language film adaptation of the novel Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran, as a Muslim Turkish merchant who becomes a father figure for a Jewish boy.
Sharif's final role was as lead actor in the short science education film 1001 Inventions and the World of Ibn Al-Haytham, which was directed by Ahmed Salim for 1001 Inventions, and was released as part of the United Nations' International Year of Light campaign, operated by UNESCO.

On 10 July 2015, less than six months after Hamama's death at the same age, Sharif died after suffering a heart attack at a hospital in Cairo, Egypt. On 12 July 2015, Sharif's funeral was held at the Grand Mosque of Mushir Tantawi in eastern Cairo. The funeral was attended by a group of Sharif's relatives, friends and Egyptian actors.
Liability for this article lies with the author, who also holds the copyright. Editorial content from USPA may be quoted on other websites as long as the quote comprises no more than 5% of the entire text, is marked as such and the source is named (via hyperlink).