Omar Sharif has died at the age of 83. The Egyptian actor, best known for roles in Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, suffered a heart attack in Cairo on Friday, his agent Steve Kenis said.
In May his son revealed the star had been suffering from Alzheimer’s. His son, Tarek Sharif, and two grandsons survive him.
Sharif, who was one of the few Arab actors to achieve mainstream Hollywood success, grew up in Cairo. In an interview in 2012, he recalled how his mother would socialise with King Farouk as well as dole out regular beatings to her son.
“By night she would play cards, by day she would give me the slipper,” he said. “She hit me on my backside every day till I was 14. She was an extraordinary woman – she lived till 1998. I was very close to her, even though she beat me all the time!”
Sharif was Oscar-nominated for his role in David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia and went on to win a Golden Globe for his performance. It was his first English-language role after appearing in over 20 Egyptian films.
He spoke about the film to the Guardian in 2012: “When I made this film I thought: ‘This is a crazy thing. There are no girls, no very famous actors at that time, only men and no action, not a lot of action. Not a lot of fights.’ It was so good because the director was a brilliant man. That’s the truth. David Lean was a great, great man.”
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