Published: Jul 10, 2015, 11:51 PM (IST)
Edited: Jul 10, 2015, 11:52 PM (IST)
Omar Sharif, 83, passed away of a heart-attack at Cairo. One of the iconic Hollywood actors of the 1960s, Sharif carved out a career as a contract bridge champion. Abhishek Mukherjee looks at a curious cricket connection of the man who ruled over many a heart in his heydays.
Omar Sharif, Lebanese by descent, was born Michel Demitri Chalhoub in Alexandria, Egypt. Elaborating on his prowess and impact in Hollywood will make little impact in a world that had been mesmerised by his work, mostly in the 1960s.
His performances as Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago in Doctor Zhivago, and Nicky Arnstein in Funny Girl and Funny Lady require little introduction. Colorado from Mackenna’s Gold, however, remains a personal favourite. He was as impeccable as Gregory Peck was as Sam McKenna.
A lesser known career pursued by Sharif was contract bridge. He was one of the best of the era, and is considered among of the greatest in history. He founded Omar Sharif Bridge Circus in 1967. The club took on several leading clubs across the world, Blue Team and Dallas Aces being the most famous. Sharif was also a contract bridge columnist and author.
The much-acclaimed game Omar Sharif on Bridge, originally released on MS-DOS, is still played on Windows and even on mobile phones. Sharif licensed his name to the game. Al Jazeera mentions him saying, “I’d rather be playing bridge than making a bad movie.”
As it often happens with ace card-players, Sharif was a gambler, and was a regular at casinos in France. The Telegraph mentions him losing a villa worth £4,000,000 in Lanzarote, Spain, in a bridge game.
But where does the cricket connection come from? It is about one Everton de Courcy Weekes, one of the three Ws of Barbados and West Indies, the only man to have scored hundreds in five consecutive Test innings, and a man with 4,455 Test runs at 59.
Yes, Weekes partnered Sharif in contract bridge.
(Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor and Cricket Historian at CricketCountry. He blogs here and can be followed on Twitter here.)
