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When his father forbade him from doing any more acting, the young Sharif dramatically slit his wrists in what he admitted later was not a serious suicide bid.Įven as a teenager, he was already indulging another lifelong passion - women. It was there that Sharif discovered his love of acting - a passion that horrified his father, who wanted his son to follow him into business. His parents packed him off to a tough, traditional English-style boarding school in Cairo when he was ten. ‘He believed she was good luck to him - she was his mascot. ‘My mother used to play cards with King Farouk,’ Sharif recalled. Regular visitors to their home included King Farouk, the Egyptian monarch who was deposed in 1952. They lived in a wealthy area of Cairo where his glamorous, extrovert mother became a noted society hostess. His father was a successful timber merchant who made extra money salvaging barbed wire left behind by the British after World War II, turning it into nails. Psychiatrists might have seen trouble ahead from Sharif’s earliest years.īorn Michel Demitri Shalhoub in Alexandria in 1932, he was of Lebanese ancestry. He gave up roulette after losing £750,000 in a single night, but continued to leach money as only a gambling addict knows how. Instead, he lived in Paris because he could enjoy the city’s casinos and the nearby racetrack at Deauville. ‘I’d rather be playing bridge than making a bad movie,’ Sharif once declared in his defence.Ĭritics might have noted that if only he had applied himself to acting, the talented performer - who could act in six languages - might have spent his life making ‘good’ movies. Sharif eventually gave up on acting, becoming a world-class bridge player and largely devoting his life to gambling instead. He became an inveterate gambler, touring the casino tables of Europe, frittering away his fortune which he had to replenish by taking uninspiring roles as the ‘foreign gentleman’ or ‘exotic lover’ in a string of forgettable films. But to wining and womanising, Sharif added a third vice he had inherited specifically from his mother. He and his Lawrence Of Arabia co-star, Peter O’Toole, were two of the greatest Hollywood hell-raisers of their generation. Sharif, pictured here in November, admitted that he squandered his lifeĪlthough he was certainly not lacking in self-belief, he was the first to admit that he had squandered his life and career, throwing away the early promise he showed for the easier pleasures of carousing and gambling. It was a sad finale for a rootless, lonely actor who, in later life, spent decades in hotels in London and Paris, finally returning to Egypt (where he also lived in a hotel), presumably so he could die in his homeland. In May, his son had revealed how the star had been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease. Sharif died yesterday at the age of 83 after suffering a heart attack in Cairo. Omar Sharif, here with Julie Andrews in 1974’s The Tamarind Seed, threw away his promising career in favour of gambling and carousing The dashing Egyptian film star with the mournful gap-toothed smile could be a very naughty boy. Published: 23:36 GMT, 10 July 2015 | Updated: 05:24 GMT, 11 July 2015Įven in his final years, Omar Sharif never forgot how his mother smacked his backside with a slipper every day until he was 14.Īlthough the star of Doctor Zhivago, Funny Girl and Lawrence Of Arabia brought a smouldering screen intensity that captivated some of the world’s most beautiful women, one can understand his mother’s frustration. In recent years the star, suffering from Alzheimer’s, revealed he was lonelyīy Tom Leonard In New York For The Daily Mail.But admitted he threw away his own career for carousing and gambling.
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Egyptian film star rose to fame in classics like Lawrence of Arabia.Omar Sharif died aged 83 after suffering a heart attack in Cairo.But Omar Sharif squandered his talent – and died angry and alone The lonely Lothario: He bathed in bubbly, out-caroused O’Toole, seduced Hollywood co-stars galore and gambled away millions.