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One day in the mid-sixties I was on a Pan Am 747 from London to Chicago, sitting next to my then-employer, Omar Sharif. I was a member of the “Omar Sharif Bridge Circus,” an unlikely assemblage of professional card players from France, Italy, Egypt…and, given my presence, the United States. We played high-stakes exhibition matches against local teams in front of hundreds of spectators. Mostly my role was pure show-biz; I explained what the players were thinking, told anecdotes…you know, entertainment. Every now and then they even let me play a few hands. Life was spectacularly good, not least because...

Egyptian actor Omar Sharif, best known for his roles in Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago died at age of 83, Egyptian media reported. “He died this afternoon of a heart attack in Cairo,” Steve Kenis told AFP, adding that the actor had been in a hospital for patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Born in a Syrian family and named Michel Demitri Chalhoub in Egypt in 1932, he was brought up as a Roman catholic and earned a college degree in mathematics and physics before he joined his family’s business. Read: Hollywood film legend Omar Sharif suffering from Alzheimer’s disease Omar...

Omar Sharif, star of Dr Zhivago and one of the world's greatest bridge players, has died aged 83. His agent Steve Kenis said on Friday: "He suffered a heart attack this afternoon in a hospital in Cairo." Egyptian-born Sharif, who had Alzheimer’s disease, won international acclaim for his role in the 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia – his first English-language film. He won two Golden Globes and an Oscar nomination for his turn as Sherif Ali in David Lean’s iconic film.

Hollywood actor Omar Sharif is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and struggles to remember his most famous films, his son has revealed. The 83-year-old Egyptian-born actor, who shot to fame in 1962 when he starred in Lawrence of Arabia and later for his title role in Doctor Zhivago in 1965, has been struggling with the illness for the last three years. His son, Tarek El-Sharif, has revealed his father has now retired from acting due to the illness, which has seen him confusing the names of his most famous films and forgetting where they were filmed. He says his father knows...

"The Last Valley" stars Michael Caine and Omar Sharif, it's set in Germany in the 1640s during the Thirty Years War.I stumbled upon this forgotten masterpiece from 1971 a few days ago when I obtained some old VHS tapes from a friend. Just update the story line 400 years, change it to Christians vs Muslims, give everybody an AK-47, and this may be what the future is going to bring. The movie flopped at the box office for a number of reasons unrelated to its quality. The John Barry soundtrack alone is stunning. "The Last Valley" is now on Youtube...

Another TCM alert: tonight at 8PM it's airing "Doctor Zhivago". Definitely worth seeing as Hollywood film that actually showed how terrible life was in Soviet Russia. The only thing I don't like about it is its hero cheating on his cute wife with Lara. Otherwise, a truly great film with Rod Steiger stealing the show as the opportunistic lawyer Komarovsky.

For those interested, Turner Classic Movies will air "Doctor Zhivago" tonight starting at 8PM E.S.T.. While I don't approve of the adultery of the film's hero, it is one of the few times when Hollywood produced a huge epic showing how awful life under Soviet totalitarian communism truly was. For that reason alone it's worth seeing at least once. Tom Courtnenay's youthfully idealistic Pasha provides a great example of a liberal who gets power then proceeds to torment everyone else for the "common good." The scene where Zhivago returns to his wife and family after World War I only to...

The grandson of two-time Golden Globe winning actor Omar Sharif "hesitantly confessed" in an article published Sunday that he is gay and half Jewish, and worried about being welcome in Egypt. Omar Sharif Jr. wrote in The Advocate, "I write this article in fear. Fear for my country, fear for my family, and fear for myself. My parents will be shocked to read it, surely preferring I stay in the shadows and keep silent, at least for the time being. But I can't." Sharif expressed his disappointment at the recent parliamentary elections, writing that the revolution gave him hope for...

Cairo's Tahrir Square, where protests have been centered, is visible from his high-rise apartment and helicopters buzz overhead. "They want the president to step down. This is the first thing. After that, they do not know what they want," he told The Associated Press on Monday. "I personally don't know what they will do afterwards. Who will they bring, who will take his place, who will be in charge of the country?"

LOS ANGELES -- Actor Omar Sharif has pleaded no contest to misdemeanor battery and was ordered to take an anger management course. Sharif was accused of punching a parking valet who'd refused to accept his European currency. The Egyptian-born acting legend wasn't required to be in court. The plea was entered by an attorney. The judge in Beverly Hills, Calif., placed Sharif on two years' probation. A civil lawsuit filed by valet Juan Anderson alleged that Sharif and a female companion were leaving a restaurant in June of 2005 when the actor became upset that his SUV wasn't waiting. According...

Desperate flight of failed British suicide bomber By Nick Britten (Filed: 06/09/2006) Britain's first suicide bomber fought with locals, escaped being held at knife point and evaded a huge police manhunt after his mission to blow up a cafe failed, an inquest heard yesterday. Attempts by Omar Sharif to escape justice after his botched attack in Israel were disclosed for the first time Sharif, 27, from Derby, and another Briton, Asif Hanif, 21, from Hounslow, west London, travelled to the Middle East in 2003 intent on blowing themselves up. As Hanif's bomb went off, killing three people and injuring 65...

In late January, I uncovered a password-protected Arabic-language website, Barsomyat.com, that was frequented by Middle Eastern Muslims, predominantly Egyptians. The purpose of Barsomyat.com was to systematically track Christians who were active in religious debates against Muslims on the internet chat service PalTalk. Barsomyat featured pictures of these Christians (some of which were obviously obtained by hacking into the Christians' computers) along with death threats and attempts to track down the subjects' physical addresses. Even Barsomyat.com's banner showed the website's intentions toward Christians, as it pictured a sheep--obviously intended to represent Christianity--getting its throat slit.

Omar Sharif was sued by a restaurant parking valet who says the actor called him a derogatory name and punched him after the valet refused to accept his European currency. The suit claims Sharif was belligerent and intoxicated and called the valet a "stupid Mexican" when he refused to accept a 20 euro note.

Veteran actor Omar Sharif has been threatened with death on an Arab website that often contains messages from al-Qaeda. The Italian news agency Adnkronos International, which closely monitors Arabic media, said that the writer of the message objected to comments made by the actor about his role as St. Peter in a two-part Italian miniseries that aired last week. Sharif, who was born a Christian but converted to Islam when he married an Egyptian film actress in the 1950s, said that after playing Peter, "It will be difficult for me to play other roles from now on." In response, a...

A message on a website linked to al-Qaida has threatened death to the veteran Egyptian actor Omar Sharif after he played St Peter in an Italian TV film. In remarks widely reported in Italy earlier this month, the 73-year old actor, a convert to Islam, said he had "seemed to hear voices" during the filming of St Peter, a two-part mini-series shown last week. Sharif was quoted as saying: "Playing Peter was so important for me that even now I can only speak about it with difficulty. It will be difficult for me to play other roles from now on."...

An article justifying the attack on the World Trade Centre and a biography of the Taliban leader were found on a British suicide bomber's e-mail address, the Old Bailey has heard. The items were discovered on Omar Sharif's e-mail account at a medical centre where he worked shortly before leaving on his bombing mission, said prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw. Sharif was working at the Derby Lane Medical Centre, Derby, from early 2002 until April 10 last year when he left for Syria. From Syria he and fellow bomber Asif Hanif travelled to Tel Aviv where they targeted Mike's Place, a popular...

Egyptian actor Omar Sharif was handed a suspended one-month prison sentence and fined $2630 for butting a police officer at a French casino, judicial sources in the French city of Pontoise said yesterday. The 71-year-old actor, who starred in such Hollywood classics as Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, was also ordered by the court in Pontoise to pay 300 euros ($A526) in damages to his victim. The incident occurred on the night of July 5 as Sharif, an enthusiastic gambler, was losing heavily in the casino of Enghien-les-Bains, about 40km north of the French capital. According to judicial sources,...

What Drove 2 Britons to Bomb a Club in Tel Aviv? By SARAH LYALL DERBY, England, May 8 — Something changed Omar Khan Sharif, sent him in a new direction, and Derby's older Pakistani population cannot begin to fathom what it was. But the radicalization of the well-educated, thoroughly Westernized Mr. Sharif, 27 — the forces that led him from Derby to Tel Aviv, where he is wanted on charges of helping to carry out a suicide bombing in a beachfront nightclub on April 30 — make a certain sense to the younger, second-generation immigrants born and raised here. Mr....

Britain's MI5 knew that the two Britons who carried out a suicide bombing in Israel last week had links to Islamic extremists, but they decided the pair were not potential terrorists, officers of the security service say. In an MI5 investigation of Islamic terrorism, Asif Mohammed Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif were identified as part of the hardline al-Muhajiroun movement, but were not put under constant surveillance because they were thought to be on the group's fringes, the officers said. Last week Hanif, 21, killed himself and three Israelis when he detonated a belt full of explosives in a Tel...