10 April: Omar Sharif

This date in 1932 was the birthdate of Omar Sharif (Michael Shalhoub), Egyptian actor whose films include Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago and Funny Girl.

1. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt. His father, Joseph Shalhoub, was a lumber merchant, and his mother, Claire, was a professional gambler, ranked with King Faroukh as one of the most daring players.

2. His parents gave him the name Michel Demitri Shalhoub and he was brought up as a Catholic.

3. He attended Cairo University and got a degree in mathematics and physics, then worked at the family lumber business for a time.

4. His first film was an Egyptian one, called The Blazing Sun in 1954. His co-star was a well known Egyptian actress of the time called Faten Hamama.

5. Who became his wife in 1955. He converted to Islam in order to marry her and that is when he took the name Omar Sharif. They had one son, Tarek, and divorced in 1974. Sharif claimed she was the love of his life and although he had affairs, he never remarried.

6. He was also famous as a bridge player and was known to postpone film shootings in order to take part in tournaments. In the 1970s and 1980s, he co-wrote a syndicated newspaper bridge column for the Chicago Tribune, and was also the author of several books about the game. A bridge computer game, "Omar Sharif Bridge", has been marketed since 1992. Another of his hobbies was breeding and racing Horses.

7. Lawrence of Arabia was the first film he made in English. He played Sherif Ali, but wasn’t the first choice for the role. Dilip Kumar turned it down, Horst Buchholz was unavailable and Maurice Ronet could not use the contact lenses to mask his eye colour. It was considered a risky move by David Lean at the time as Sharif was virtually unknown outside Egypt.

8. He had a bit of an anger management problem. In 2003 he got a one-month suspended prison sentence for hitting a police officer in a Paris casino, and in 2005 was ordered to take an anger management course for punching a parking attendant who refused to accept his European currency.

9. He was fluent in Arabic, English, French, Greek, Italian and Spanish.

10. He had triple bypass surgery in 1992, and immediately quit his 100 a day smoking habit. He died of a heart attack in 2015.

I also write novels and short stories. If you like superheroes, psychic detectives and general weirdness you might enjoy them. 

Check out my works of fiction at https://juliehowlinauthor.wordpress.com/my-books/