Actor Omar Sharif has died of a heart attack at 83 in his adopted hometown of Cairo, his agent, Steve Kernis, tells USA TODAY.
He was best known for playing Sherif Ali in the 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia, for which he earned a supporting actor Academy Award nomination and won a Golden Globe. It was his first English-language role.
Three years later, Sharif reunited with his David Lean, his director from Lawrence, for the title role in Doctor Zhivago.
Born Michel Chalhoub in 1932, Sharif came from a well-to-do family, thanks to his father's lumber business and friendship with King Farouk. However, the family saw their fortunes change for the worse following the 1952 Egyptian Revolution.
Travel restrictions imposed by President Gamal Abdel Nasser led the young actor to stay in Europe between film projects rather than return home and risk not being able to leave again. It was a decision that doomed his marriage to actress Faten Hamama, for whom he had converted to Islam. The couple divorced in 1974. They had one son, Tarek El-Sharif.
Controversy erupted in 1968 when Sharif was cast as a Jewish character, NIcky Arstein in Funny Girl alongside Barbra Streisand, amid the Six-Day Way between his homeland and its eastern neighbor, Israel. The news of an affair between the co-stars nearly cost Sharif his Egyptian citizenship. It did not deter them from making a sequel, 1975's Funny Lady.
Sharif would go on to show his range in biopics (1969's Genghis Khan and Che Guevara in Che!), westerns (1969's Mackenna's Gold with Gregory Peck), romances (1974's The Tamarind Seed with Julie Andrews) and comedies (doing cameos in 1976's The Pink Panther Strikes Again and 1980's Top Secret!).
He was a prolific performer, working at least every other year up until his death.
Recent Hollywood projects included The Ten Commandments in 2008 and The Last Templar, a 2009 miniseries for NBC.
When he wasn't acting, Sharif was a passionate bridge player, taking parts in card tournaments around the world. However, he quit in the mid-2000s, saying he wanted to dedicate more time to his family and work.
Sharif's final project, a short film titled 1001 Inventions and the World of Ibn Al-Haytham, is currently in post-production.
