Omar Sharif
Omar Sharif was born Michel Chalhoub on 10 April 1932. Educated at Victoria College in Alexandria, he converted from Christianity to Islam and changed his name to Omar Sharif before making his Egyptian film debut in The Blazing Sun in 1953. Between 1953 and 1958, he appeared in twenty-four Arabic-language films. On the set of his first film, Sharif became bored during the long pauses between his scenes and took up the game of bridge to while away the time. Sharif became internationally known after playing a lead role in the film Lawrence of Arabia, a part for which he received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor. Sharif has appeared in many English-language films, including Doctor Zhivago and Funny Girl. He won the Golden Lion lifetime achievement award for fifty years in films in 2003 after a comeback in the film Mr. Ibrahim, in which he plays the role of an old Arab man in Paris who adopts a young Jewish boy. He also pursued his interest in bridge, becoming one of the world’s leading authorities on the game and authoring several books on the subject.
In 1953, Sharif began his acting career with a role in the Egyptian film, Sira`a Fi al-Wadi, (English, The Blazing Sun or Struggle in the Valley or Fight in the Valley). Numerous Egyptian productions followed. He starred with his wife, Egyptian actress Faten Hamama, in several movies as romantic leads. Others include Ayyamna el helwa (Our Best Days, 1955), La anam (I Don’t Sleep, 1958), Sayedat el kasr (Lady of the Castle, 1959) and the Anna Karenina adaptation Nahr el hub (The River of Love, 1961).
Sharif’s first English language film was Lawrence of Arabia in 1962, in which he played the role of Sherif Ali. This performance earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, a Most Promising Newcomer award and worldwide fame as the world’s leading Arabic actor.[citation needed] Sharif played the title role in the 1965 film Doctor Zhivago by David Lean. His decision to star in William Wyler’s Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand reportedly angered Egypt’s government due to Streisand’s support for the state of Israel.
After a decade with infrequent screen work, in 2003 he received acclaim for his role in the 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. 
In November 2005, he was given a medal by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in recognition of his significant contributions to world film and cultural diversity. The medal—which is handed out very infrequently—is named after Russian director Sergei Eisenstein and can only be given out a total of 25 times by Russia’s Mosfilm.
Sharif, once among the world’s best known contract bridge players, co-wrote a syndicated newspaper bridge column for the Chicago Tribune for several years. He is also both author and co-author of several books on bridge and has licensed his name to a bridge computer game; initially released in a DOS version in 1992, Omar Sharif Bridge is still sold in Windows and “mobile platform” versions.For a number of years his partner at international tournaments was American football coach Tommy Prothro.
Sharif has been a regular in casinos in France, where he once assaulted a casino employee after losing thousands of dollars on a single roulette bet.
In 2006 Sharif declared both pastimes as ended when he was asked if he still played bridge: “I’ve stopped altogether. I decided I didn’t want to be a slave to any passion any more except for my work. I had too many passions, bridge, horses, gambling. I want to live a different kind of life, be with my family more because I didn’t give them enough time.”
