He knew him as a persona non grata, like an Egyptian Judas … We couldn't figure it out. Me, representing the West, I saw him as some Hollywood superstar, playboy, glamour man, while Mark, representing the East and Egypt, had a completely different perception. 'Quite early on in our relationship we realised that we had two very, very different perceptions of Omar Sharif. 'Omar Sharif was a conversation piece that we could always come back to,' Petersen told US magazine Variety. In The Life and Times of Omar Sharif, Egyptian filmmaker Mark Lotfy and Swedish director Axel Petersen will explore how president Gamal Abdel Nasser's policies led to Sharif changing his name, converting to Islam and eventually becoming a world-renowned figure moving between Europe, the US and Egypt. Omar Sharif and Barbra Streisand in 'Funny Girl'. However, a new documentary is set to highlight some lesser-known facts about the Dr Zhivago actor, who died in 2015, examining how the politics of 1950s Egypt shaped Sharif and his career. But the man behind the many guises has always remained a bit of a mystery.
Omar Sharif was as enigmatic as he was famous.Īcross his six-decade career, the Egyptian actor starred in Egyptian, American, British, French and Italian productions and played hundreds of characters.
