Posted on 07/11/2015 3:08:20 PM PDT by jocon307
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 Omar was such a good fellow, a real buddy well met, easy to be with, easy to laugh with, a very fine card player, a gambling addict, and man did he know his red wine. And race horses. The big downside was that no woman was going to pay me the slightest attention.
I read that Sharif was raised as a Roman Catholic, I guess for now there are no more of those (us) in Egypt.
RIP Omar Sharif.
A lovely man apparently. Streisand put up a very nice obit of him on Facebook. He stood back and let her steal that movie from him because he was an old-fashioned gentleman. Who will ever forget his Ali in Lawrence of Arabia? I walked into my father’s nursing home today and saw him glued to the screen - it was, of course, ‘Orance on tv.
Great scene.
He was in some fine movies.
“Dr. Zhivago” was one of the all time greats. Probably in the top 10 of all movies.
Fan-made vid I found a few years ago w/lots of great clips from Zhivago...pretty music, too (not from movie):
https:// youtu.be/old4K4Tpo8c
Fan-made vid I found a few years ago w/lots of great clips from Zhivago...pretty music, too (not from movie):
“Streisand put up a very nice obit of him on Facebook”
That is nice to know. I just watched “Funny Girl” the other day. I remember it was a big hit, but we didn’t go to the movies too much when I was a kid and I’d never seen it.
Lawrence is my #1 movie, but Zhivago is a masterpiece, too. Lean was magnificent.
Dr Zhivago is the best movie ever made, IMHO. Shows all the evils of Communism, like no Hollywood movie has before or since.
The very young actor.
“Dr. Zhivago” was one of the all time greats. Probably in the top 10 of all movies.”
I read the book and LOVED the movie, but I’m thinking I should re-read and re-watch.
I did really feel I understood the Russian people more, they went through WWI, the Revolution and then WWII, very tough.
Sharif is great in the movie, excellent really and Julie Christie is great, and Rod Stieger is also great as the bad guy.
I read that this movie was panned by the MSM, because it was too anti-commie!
One of the few movies I have ever actually purchased. They are all VHS and I guess as long as I have the VCRs I can watch them.
“You dropped your phony dog poo.”
“What phony dog poo?”
He was raised a Catholic. But, sadly, he fell in love with a moslem and so, when they married, he converted to Islam.
I do not know what happened when they divorced. It strikes me he didn’t really have any solid core beliefs. I hope I’m wrong.
The movie was produced by Carlo Ponti, Sophia Loren's husband. Cinematography by the incomparable David Lean.
The Nobel Prize winning novel was by Boris Pasternak, himself a somewhat humanistic communist unacceptable to soviet authorities who starved him to death on rations of one potato a day for the "crime" of those "comrades" who smuggled the manuscript to the West where it became an immense success in many languages. The novel was first published in Italy in 1957 and the movie was released in 1965.
Not only was Pasternak a dissenting communist but Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay, Brad Steiger, Siobhan McKenna, and Geraldine Chaplin were no strangers to the radical left. Sadly, Sharif took the 1969 role of Che Guevara in that year's Che. By and large, Sharif enjoyed a distinguished cinematic career.
May God have mercy on his soul!
Music from Dr. Zhivago.
Andre Rieu - Somewhere My Love “Dr. Zhivago” Lara’s Theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoIaoVE8lkU
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.