Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

"The Only Egyptian To Ever Hit Hollylwood Big Time" Convicted of Hitting in Hollywood
Monday, February 19, 2007

Egyptian-born Omar Sharif, of all people, has been in the news this week, after he was convicted of punching a valet parker in L.A. for not getting his car quick enough. On top of that, he called the attendant a "dirty Mexican."

The Independent offers this summary of his rise to fame: "Back in the 1960s, Sharif wowed Western audiences with his performances in Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago and developed a reputation as an international playboy who could reliably play the foreigner - preferably swarthy and sexy, though not necessarily - in any given movie production. In his heyday, Sharif was something truly remarkable - perhaps the only Egyptian, if not the only Arab, ever to hit the Hollywood big time. The job offers flooded in, as did the marriage proposals, as many as 1,000 of them a week, according to legend."

Then in capitulates his sad demise:

Omar Sharif hasn't had a hit in years. Unless, of course, you count the time he headbutted a police officer in a casino in the Parisian suburbs in 2003, for which he received a £1,000 fine and a suspended sentence. "It made me the hero of the whole of France," he later said, less than apologetically. "To headbutt a cop is the dream of every Frenchman."
Or the time, a year later, he whacked his fellow actor John Noble with a lamp while on location in India for a barely noticed biblical movie called One Night with the King. ("We were drunk," Sharif later explained.)

Or, going back a bit further to 1985, the time he knocked Ian Dury out cold on the floor of Le Caprice in London. (Both men were still furious about the fight when, four years later, they wound up in the cast of the same film, an obscure Polish production called The Rainbow Thief.)

Most recently, the Omar Sharif hit most in the news has been a punch to the nose he allegedly delivered to a parking valet outside a Beverly Hills restaurant in 2005. According to the prosecution in this week's quick-fire trial, Sharif - accompanied by an unidentified female - was intoxicated and became enraged after the valet at Mastro's Steakhouse, one Juan Anderson, refused to accept a €20 note as payment for parking the actor's four-wheel-drive Porsche.

In retaliation, the prosecution alleged, Sharif called Anderson a "stupid Mexican" (he is in fact of Guatemalan descent) and broke his nose. Sharif chose not to fly to Los Angeles to defend himself - he has been in his native Egypt of late - preferring to plead no contest and accept a sentence of probation plus mandatory anger management therapy. He is also likely to have to pay restitution to the valet for the broken nose, something the judge will decide at a sentencing hearing scheduled for April.

Labels: Middle East, Pop Culture

Posted by B Feiler at 7:00 AM
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