Omar Sharif
Sharif in 2004, photo by Denis Makarenko/Bigstock.com
Birth Name: Michel Yusef Dimitri Chalhoub
Date of Birth: 10 April, 1932
Place of Birth: Alexandria, Kingdom of Egypt
Date of Death: 10 July, 2015
Place of Death: Cairo, Egypt
Ethnicity: Egyptian/Lebanese
Omar Sharif was an Egyptian actor. He was also known as Omar el-Sherief and Omar Cherif.
He was the son of Claire (Saada) and Joseph Chalhoub, a precious woods merchant. He had a son with his former wife, actress and producer Faten Hamama. He was born to a Melkite Catholic family, and converted to Islam in 1955, when he married Faten. His grandson is actor, model, author, and gay activist Omar Sharif, Jr.
Omar’s maternal grandmother was named Abla Abdallah.
Omar has often been described as having been of Lebanese and/or Syrian descent, with some reports suggesting that his parents were from the city of Zahlé. In 1996, he appeared in the documentary Lebanon… Imprisoned Splendour.
However, in a 2009 appearance on Nile Cinema, an Egyptian television program, Omar stated that his parents and grandparents were all Egyptian. He stated the same in a 2010 interview.
Source: Genealogy of Omar Sharif (focusing on his mother’s side) – https://www.geni.com
@bablah
what’s your opinion about Omar Sharif’s background?
I don’t have one ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Can I ask you again?
Pretty clear he ethnically was not an Arab/Muslim/MENA one, even though he embraced that culture.
It already says he was born a Catholic, so obviously he wasn’t of Muslim background. Arab, however, it’s pretty clear that he was.
Except that he was…
His real name screams Lebanese.
you definitely should change his ethnicity. That “iloveqatar.net” looks to me like a biased site. A “Christian Lebanese” would be more accurate, considering that he was raised as a Melkite Greek Catholic.
The link is just a reprint of an interview that was published here.
https://web.archive.org/web/20110606042356/http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=350053&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16
In the 2000s/2010s, Sharif denied that he is of Lebanese descent.
I don’t know what the facts are, but did he ever state that he was of Lebanese descent?
I didn’t find anything about it. Consider that he converted to Islam and changed his name in his 20s.
He definitely has Levant ancestry.
Full blood Egyptians look like a fairer skinned Obama.
Agree
That’s not necessarily true///
he is Lebanese
was