In May, Sharif's son Tarek El-Sharif, revealed that his father had Alzheimer's... He said the actor mistook fans for people he used to know....
"He remembers for example that it was Doctor Zhivago but he's forgotten when it was filmed," he added. He can talk about the film but he forgets its name or he calls it something else like Lawrence Of Arabia."
ADDED: The video looks long, but it's very interesting, including how he learned English — his mother was disgusted that he'd gotten fat and sent him to an English school so he'd be stuck with bad food — and how he preferred acting in English — because it's efficiently expressive with words like "why?" and "yes" (unlike the comparable Arabic words) — and how the English director David Lean taught him not to move his head around (as the French and Egyptians do).
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28 comments:
Great film with a great cast. Sharif was Egyptian but since he looked more Persian than Arab he passed for a very tall Mongolian-Russian mixture
We are reliving Dr Zhivago's world today. The Communist Revolutionaries are back again disguised as super hero Climatologists. Like Zhivago the best we can hope for is to keep some real and earthy life going until the new idealists finish carving up the world again to suit themselves.
He could sing too.
Playing Bridge
RIP
I agree, traditionalguy. I see the similarities, and remember the zealots, and the people crammed into the apartment breaking up furniture to keep warm. It can happen here.
Classic film, wonderful actor
I don't understand why a remake was made. dumb, dumb...
Interesting that there isn't really a modern Sharif. It seems that Hollywood, or the Anglo-American film industry, was more cosmopolitan back then.
I guess he agreed with George Raft about money.
“Part of the loot went for gambling, part for horses and part for women. The rest I spent foolishly.”
I loved Lawrence. Zhivago not as good.
He was great in Monsieur Ibrahim..
"We are reliving Dr Zhivago's world today."
Yes! America's now filled with tens of thousands of Streknikov wannabees, each
totally convinced of their moral rectitude and eager to impose it on anyone who stands in their way.
Yesterday's slogans: Diversity! Inclusiveness!
Todays's slogan: Shut the fuck up and submit!!
The last movie he starred in was Rock the Casbah. A French - Moroccan drama comedy.
The scene of him in the morgue had me on the floor.............
I loved the way he bragged to Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia "I have been in Cairo for my schooling. I can both read and write".
Monsieur Ibrahim
Handsome man.
It is so sad to think what the ravages of Alzheimer's does to a person...I remember when I first started seeing his bridge column on the comics page of the newspaper and wondered if that must be Omar Sharif, the actor, because who else has that name?
...on a side note, I happen to be reading "Dr. Zhivago" right now...I just visited my parents, where my mother has always unearthed some "new" literary treasures from their vast collection, and there it was...
Funny, I have been thinking about Dr. Zhivago lately. With HUD's newly released regulations intended to force American suburbs to 'economically diversify', I've been wondering how long before suburban homeowners are required to accept a couple of low income families INTO their homes like in Dr. Zhivago.
I remember getting bored watching "Dr. Zhivago"... almost half a century ago. I remember him walking through a snowy, icy landscape for a long time and ending up with icicles on his face. Like this.
If you think a man roaming Siberia during a Russian winter bores you, think about the trapped Russians, and Pass the vodka.
I remember getting bored watching "Dr. Zhivago"... almost half a century ago.
This is covered in "Must Love Dogs" (Diane Lane)
I remember Ahab the Arab mostly.
I am a bad bridge player but still love the game. Sharif's columns were entertaining and challenging, and I was always amazed how a pro like Sharif could track the played cards, predict holdings, and win very big bucks in tournaments. How sad for that mind to be destroyed by disease.
By the way, if you enjoy Bad Cinema, be sure to see Mackenna's Gold, a very bad western about how "...seventeen men and two women hunt for a cache of gold in savage Apache Country." Sharif was a co-star.
A great exchange was as follows:
Dr. Zhivago: You have no right to call me from work.
Communist Political Officer: -As a Soviet Deputy, l-- -
Dr. Zhivago: That gives you power, not the right.
Communist Political Officer: It's noticed, you know. Your attitude is noticed.
Courtesy of Ramzpaul.
Yes, your attitude is noticed. Scary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61AWnIZrT5g
I saw Dr. Zhivago for the first time in the past couple of years. Powerful film.
However, what resonated with me was a message that I do not think the film was trying to convey: Dr. Zhivago's was given a "no lose" situation and still manages to lose. One one hand, he has his wife: pretty, intelligent, rich, mother to his son, beloved by his family. On the other hand, he has Lara: stunningly beautiful, intelligent, passionate, absolutely dedicated. He needs to pick one. He never does. Oh, yes, he ends up with one of them for a while but he never really commits to it, eternally hedging his bets. It makes the ending all the more pathetic. What makes it worse is he probably made both women worse off for knowing him.
""Omar Sharif, star of Dr Zhivago and one of the world's greatest bridge players, dies.""
Julie Christie was the star of "Dr. Zhivago." Omar Sharif was there. That's how I remember it, anyway.
My random responses to the news of Omar Sharif's death:
-- He was excellent in "Funny Girl"; he was charming and could sing passably. And he had enough screen presence not to be eclipsed by Barbra Streisand.
-- My mother loved him in "Dr. Zhivago" and often played "Lara's Theme" on the piano. I can hear it now, even though I hadn't thought about it in years.
-- I used to read his bridge column regularly. I didn't know he had Alzheimer's. I first became aware of my father's onset of Alzheimer's several years ago while we were playing bridge and he couldn't remember his bids or his leads.
I guess I didn't expect this news to resonate in so many ways.
We get the Omar Sharif obit but not Kenny "the Snake" Stabler?
Ridiculous!
I think that he might have been my first crush: as a child, saw him in "The Tamarind Seed," one of my mother's favorite movies. Had no idea what it was about, only remember that it was intense, and the ending always made mom cry.
Remember absolutely losing it after seeing his commercials for both the French National Lottery and a horse-racing periodical in the early 90s. ("Les Courses, vous le savez? C'est Ma Grande Passion...")
https://youtu.be/7-tYfV5fCto
***
Have some friends who insist that he was actually Lebanese and that they were distant cousins (Omar Cherif / Sharif being a stage name; his actual name was Michel Chaloub).
Who is the world's greatest Pinochle player? We never hear jack about that guy or gal.
I recently rewatched Zhivago. It's more of a middlebrow literary adaptation than I remembered. (The remake was just bad.)
On the plus side, it's got a lot of great visuals, strong performances, and one of the best scores ever written. On the negative side, all the actors seem to come from the British part of Russia, and it covers too many events to really get emotionally involved with any. A lot of literary adaptations just pick the best scenes from the book and trust that the reader will fill in the connecting story.
Interesting question: I wonder how the economics of a movie like this, which was an expensive prestige picture at the time, compare to today's superhero movies? It seems like it would be much cheaper, but then I can't see a $100 million opening weekend for a long movie about a doctor trying to stay cheerful through the Russian Revolution.
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