65. That Charismatic Face

I really dislike the word starting with 'a', Alzheimer. 

The Oxford Dictionary defines this term as progressive mental decline that may happen during middle or old age, caused by generalized brain degeneration. 

It is the most common cause of premature senility, named after Alois Alzheimer (1864-1915), the German neurologist who first identified it. 

I know quite a few people, or I must say some of the people I've always admired and loved, including George Fernandes, who suffered from this deadly disease. 

The Egyptian-born actor Omar Sharif, although he died of a heart attack, had been battling Alzheimer's disease beforehand. 

Seeing Sharif in all those movies I watched in Madras (now Chennai) always gave me a sort of satisfying feeling, as if we had one of our own in these films. Sharif looked quite like us in terms of color and features, at least. 

He was the biggest Arab movie star recognized internationally, the sole representative from the Middle East on the world stage. Sadly, nowadays, people from that region are often seen as 'the enemy' by the Western world. The first movie I saw where he played a Mexican outlaw was Mackenna's Gold.

In 1962, director David Lean cast him for the first time in the classic film Lawrence of Arabia, where he portrays Sherif Ali, the tribal leader who joins TE Lawrence in leading the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire. 

With his debut film, Sharif earned a supporting actor Oscar nomination and gained international fame. From that point on, he never looked back. Sharif's stardom went beyond ethnicity.

Three years later, he showcased his versatility by taking on the lead role of a doctor-poet in Lean's adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel, Doctor Zhivago.

The film portrays the war and rebellion in Czarist Russia. Omar Sharif stars as Yuri Zhivago, a sensitive and brooding man whose world is torn apart by war. Julie Christie plays Lara Antipova, his lover. The doctor becomes entangled in a tragic love story as violence consumes their lives.

All his early films were not only box office hits but also marketed globally. The subjects and characters' appeal were universal. 

Sharif played roles in various films: as a king of ancient Armenia in The Fall of the Roman Empire; Genghis Khan, the Mongol conqueror; a priest during the Spanish Civil War in Behold a Pale Horse; a German intelligence officer in The Night of the Generals; and a Yugoslav patriot trying to save his country from the Nazis in The Yellow Rolls-Royce. 

He also played a shifty gambler, an Italian Marco Polo in Marco the Magnificent, an Austrian prince in Mayerling, and a Mexican outlaw in Mackenna's Gold.

He was Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, the Argentine-born revolutionary, in Chel, playing the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara opposite Jack Palance as Fidel Castro. 

After a lengthy hiatus, he appeared again in 2003 in the French film Monsieur Ibraham, where he played a Muslim shopkeeper in Paris who adopts a Jewish boy. This compelling performance earned him the Cesar, the French equivalent of the Oscar.

In 1955, he converted to Islam and married Egypt's renowned actress, Faten Hamama. The couple had a son, but in 2004, Sharif surprised his fans by revealing he had another son, born from a one-night stand with an interviewer. 

Sharif was also a skilled bridge player and authored a newspaper column on the game for many years. He had been a remarkable gambler, reportedly winning a million dollars at an Italian casino once. 

Now, when I reflect on everything I've read about him, his eccentricities amuse me more than irritate me, much like our Bollywood actor Raj Kumar.