Omar Sharif

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

Speaker 10:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1978 and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:31

On our Desert Island this week is the film actor Omar Sharif.

Presenter0:36

Have you ever daydreamed about being alone on a desert island?

Omar Sharif0:39

I suppose everybody has it some time or other, because of all the children's literature and Robinson Crusoe was one of my favorite books, and I've often wondered if I could possibly ever do what he'd done.

Omar Sharif0:55

Could you endure solitude?

Omar Sharif0:57

Well, I am I am a very lonely person, and I don't mean that in a sad way. I'm lonely in the sense that I live alone. I have not got many friends because I traveled a lot and I've worked very hard and I was sort of disrupted from my country um when I made Lawrence of Arabia and came and lived in Europe.

Speaker 11:16

But

Omar Sharif1:17

And I do live in a climate of solitude, rather, but I think I I enjoy that.

Omar Sharif1:24

And so that I think that I wouldn't mind very much being on a desert island. I I rather like my own company better than uh people's company. Is music important to you? I wouldn't say it was important in the sense that I sit and listen to music, but I like to have music playing whatever I'm doing. Do you play music yourself? Do you play an instrument? No, I used to when I was young, I used to play a very, very strange instrum. I mean, one wouldn't think of playing that instrument, and that was the accordion.

Omar Sharif1:57

And uh one day when I was sixteen,

Omar Sharif2:00

and I had my first girlfriend.

Omar Sharif2:02

And I'd promised to take her out to dinner. And I didn't have any money to take her out to dinner, so I sold it and I gave that up.

Omar Sharif2:12

What's the first of the eight records you've chosen to take with you?

Omar Sharif2:16

Well, I thought the first

Omar Sharif2:17

record I should have with me is

Omar Sharif2:21

A record of Frank Sinatras, because that music reminds me of my first girlfriend and the my first love affairs when I was a a young man.

Speaker 42:32

Who knows where the road will lead us? Only a fool would say.

Speaker 42:44

But if you let me love you, it's for sure I'm gonna love you.

Speaker 42:52

All the way

Speaker 42:58

All the way.

Presenter3:02

Frank Sinatra All the Way

Presenter3:04

You were born in Alexandria. Were you educated there?

Omar Sharif3:07

Uh

Omar Sharif3:08

Um no, because we moved my family moved to Cairo when I was four years old and uh I went to an English school in Cairo. In those days Egypt was a protectorate and we had very good public schools, like English public schools, even more British than the than the real thing, because, you know, in the colonies everything was exaggeratedly British.

Presenter3:31

You are a very good cricketer, I believe.

Omar Sharif3:32

No, I was a fairly useful cricketer all rounder and I brought a team to England and toured England with a with a site called the Egyptian Cricket Club. And we played against the second eleven of universities at Oxford and Cambridge.

Omar Sharif3:46

You're a good linguist. You have how many languages? French, English and Arabic.

Presenter3:49

Armed sixth language.

Omar Sharif3:56

Mm-hmm. All the Mediterranean languages. Yes. As a schoolboy, what did you want to be?

Omar Sharif4:02

I was very good at maths and physics at school, and my teachers wanted me to become a mathematician or a physicist. But we had a lovely theatre at my school, which incidentally was called Victoria College, very famous school in the Middle East. And I became interested in theatre when I did my first school play, which was a play by A. A. Milne called The Invisible Duke. And I forget I was playing The Duke, and I spent about half the play hidden in a trunk because I was supposed to be not on the stage, but I was on the stage in that trunk.

Omar Sharif4:38

And from that time, from the day I played this very first part on stage, I decided that I wanted to be an actor, whatever my teachers wanted and whatever my parents desired me to do. Yes. In fact, you had to go into your father's business for a while. Yes, because my father wouldn't let me become an actor at the beginning. He wouldn't accept the idea of my being an actor. And we'd had this business in the family, this timber business, for generations. And I was an only son, and my father said, Well, I can't let you not inherit this business. So he sort of forced me to work in the timber business for a couple of years. And I was very bad at it. And I think rather intentionally, so that he would fire me. And I used to sell everything at a loss until one day he said, I think you're not made for this. Go and do what you want. And what you wanted was, of course,

Presenter5:18

I am the shop.

Presenter5:22

Fuck the

Omar Sharif5:29

Films and theatre.

Presenter5:30

Films and theatre.

Omar Sharif5:31

I I applied to come to England and uh audition for uh Rad Academy of Dramatic Arts. And just fifteen days before I was supposed to come over, I met a friend of mine who had become by then a director, a film director. He had studied in America and I was having a cup of tea at Groppies, which is a famous tea place in Cairo.

Omar Sharif5:54

And he walked in and he said, I hear you're leaving.

Omar Sharif5:57

to study acting. He said, and I've got this film that I'm going to start. Would you like to test for the leading part? And I said yes, and I did and I got the part.

Presenter6:06

Well, that's fine. That's the beginning of your real career. So let's break at this point for your second record. What's that to be?

Omar Sharif6:13

Yeah.

Omar Sharif6:13

Well, I think I'd also like to have with me on the island a record by Donna Sammer.

Omar Sharif6:21

Because also my son likes her very much. He introduced me to her. He made me learn how to like her and love her.

Omar Sharif6:29

And so this is Donna Summer singing Wasted.

Speaker 46:33

I'm sorry.

Speaker 46:36

Let's be the one with her.

Speaker 46:41

Where's the

Speaker 46:44

Not to believe me I was selfish and foolish by using the piece of a life when he's got me to woke up But now he's done it

Presenter7:04

Donna Summer singing Wasted. So you played in your first film The Blazing Sun, wasn't it? Yes, that was my first Egyptian film. And of course, right?

Omar Sharif7:13

And it caused rather a stir, I believe. It was the first Arabic film to feature a kiss. No, it was not the first Arabic film to feature a kiss, but it was the first time that particular leading lady, who was the most and still is, the most famous actress in the Middle East, had ever been kissed on screen.

Omar Sharif7:32

Yeah.

Presenter7:32

Well, you were doing very well as an actor in Egypt, and along came a a very big Anglo-American production.

Presenter7:40

And of course you know which one I'm referring to, um Lawrence of Arabia. They were looking for someone to play Ali, the the Arab leader. Did you put in for the part? How did it come about that you put in the film?

Omar Sharif7:51

No. Um they were having trouble casting that part.

Omar Sharif7:55

Because David Leen, the director, wanted someone who looked absolutely genuine, who will who would not appear to be a disguised European. And he wanted someone with dark eyes, to contrast with Peter O'Toole's light blue eyes.

Omar Sharif8:10

And they had found nobody satisfactory. And at the last moment, Sam Spiegel, the producer, had signed up an actor without telling David Lean and sent him out to the desert. And the moment he got off the plane, Lean said, That's no good, he's got green eyes, we can't have that. And they were pretty desperate.

Omar Sharif8:29

So as a last resort, David Lean asked his assistants to find him photographs of all the existing Arab actors.

Omar Sharif8:38

And they produced about fifteen hundred photographs. And he went through all these photographs and by a miracle for me

Omar Sharif8:47

He stopped.

Omar Sharif8:48

a phone mine and said

Omar Sharif8:50

This one. Go and see if he speaks any English and if he does, send him out to the desert. Yes. That's exactly what happened. There was no studio work in the film at all, was it? No. No, we did seven months out in Jordan and then we went to Spain for about seven months and then we went to Morocco to the Sahara Desert for three months.

Presenter9:11

Now as a result of the success of that film, a singularly successful one it was, you were offered a contract by the production company. W was it a long-term one? Yes, they had me.

Omar Sharif9:20

for seven years. In those days it was still the days of the sort of big studios and big companies and uh actors were like properties. They belonged to these studios and they had me for seven years and they were the ones who started this whole publicity campaign about me and they decided should we try and make

Speaker 19:30

The long

Omar Sharif9:40

up a new Valentino or something.

Speaker 19:42

Uh

Presenter9:43

Done s

Omar Sharif9:43

and they were marketing me in a way.

Omar Sharif9:46

and I there was nothing I could do or say about it.

Presenter9:49

You've never been able to live down this press agentry about uh the screen's romantic lover and all the rest of it. It still goes on.

Omar Sharif9:56

It absolutely goes. Yes, it still goes on. I think there's nothing I can do about it. It's very far from the truth. I mean, I don't.

Omar Sharif10:05

in any way resemble the image of myself that I read about or hear about. It is very remote from me.

Presenter10:13

Zombie.

Omar Sharif10:14

Yeah.

Presenter10:14

Now looking down the list of those contract films, they seem to have made you a a kind of all-purpose foreigner. You played a Spanish priest, Genghis Khan, a German policeman, a Mexican cowboy, an Austrian prince. Now most of these were in epics where the spectacle was more important. They didn't give you much chance to stretch yourself as an actor. Yeah.

Omar Sharif10:35

I had only a couple or two or three opportunities in films to stretch myself. Uh but most of the time it's true that they asked me to play sort of foreign lovers and foreign could be anything uh at all. Because although I have an accent when I speak

Omar Sharif10:53

any of the languages I speak. It's not a precise accent. I mean, it's not a French accent, it's not an Italian accent, it's not a Spanish accent. It could be anything. You just know he's a foreigner. Well, let's have your third record. What have you chosen next?

Omar Sharif11:09

I think I'd like to have with me a record of Lysa Minelli, because I know her and I love her very dearly.

Omar Sharif11:17

And

Omar Sharif11:18

I'd like, I think, to have nevertheless, I'm in love with you.

Speaker 411:27

Oh, maybe I'm right, and maybe I'm wrong.

Speaker 411:34

And maybe I'm weak, and maybe I'm strong, but nevertheless I'm in love.

Presenter11:52

Liza Menelli

Presenter11:54

You were released from your contract to make another film for David Lean.

Omar Sharif11:58

Yeah.

Omar Sharif12:00

Fortunately. Yes, I was I was making a film uh at the time in Yugoslavia called Cengis Khan.

Omar Sharif12:08

And I knew David was going to make a film of Doctor Givago.

Omar Sharif12:13

And so I quickly read the novel to see if there was a part in it for me. And I called my agents and I said, please go and see David. And I'd picked a lovely little part, because I'd never even uh entertained the idea that he would ever ask me to play Doctor

Omar Sharif12:30

Somehow it didn't occur to me that I could do that.

Omar Sharif12:34

So I had chosen the part uh of Pasha, which eventually was played by Tom Courtney. You see how different.

Speaker 112:39

Different.

Omar Sharif12:40

And I sent my agent to see David and to say, Oma read the book and he thinks Pasha he could do very well and all. And David uh said to my agent, but ask him if he'd considered to play the title part.

Omar Sharif12:54

So my agent called me when I was in Belgrade and I was on the phone and he said, Well, I talked to David about what you asked me and he he doesn't think you're right for that part. And I said, Oh, what a pity.

Omar Sharif13:06

And he said, but on the other hand, he's asking, would you consider to play the title part? And I was mad with happiness.

Speaker 413:12

Hello?

Presenter13:15

Had all that snow. Absolutely, yes, from the s from the desert to the snows. Which have been the films during recent years which have meant most to you, which you think i are the best performances?

Omar Sharif13:25

Well, I like The Horseman, although it didn't do very well, but it's a film that I like quite a lot because

Omar Sharif13:32

I have a great love for horses.

Omar Sharif13:34

and seeing these horsemen in Afghanistan.

Omar Sharif13:38

was was a wonderful thing for me. The extraordinary horseman is very special. They don't resemble any other horseman in the world. He's uh the the horseman who played uh this game called the Buskashi.

Omar Sharif13:49

I enjoyed making that film. Um I enjoyed the last film that I made, although it didn't do well either, because this last film we improvised it. We had not a script.

Omar Sharif14:01

And no dialogue. And for the first time I felt a certain freedom while I was acting because I could say the words I wanted and make them up as I went along. And it was a wonderful experience for me. What's the title of it? It was called Here, I think, Crime and Passion, uh directed by Ivan Passa, uh a Czechoslovak director who lives in New York and with um wonderful actress called Karen Black.

Omar Sharif14:27

Record number four.

Omar Sharif14:29

I think we'll have a change of rhythm with Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here.

Speaker 414:35

But ashes for trees

Speaker 414:39

Hard ever cold breathe

Speaker 414:43

Coal covered the chain.

Speaker 414:47

Did you exchange?

Speaker 414:51

Welcome part in the world.

Speaker 414:55

A lee-roll in a cane

Presenter15:06

Pink Floyd

Presenter15:08

Omar, this obsession you have, and I believe it is an obsession for bridge, when did that start? At what period in your life did you become a a cardinal?

Omar Sharif15:16

Clip.

Presenter15:16

Uh

Omar Sharif15:16

It was it was an accident, you know. I think uh it could have been fishing maybe or golf.

Omar Sharif15:23

But what happened was when I was making my first film.

Omar Sharif15:27

I realized that there was such a waste of time between shots, between scenes, while they were setting up the lights and the cameras, and that the great danger for a film actor was to get bored.

Omar Sharif15:40

During these periods when you're waiting. And I picked up an old book that was lying about, and it was a bridge book.

Omar Sharif15:48

And I'm sure if it had been a book about something else, I might have been interested in something else. And it just happened to fascinate me, and I took it up from that moment.

Presenter15:58

You're a a world class player. What what is is is your secret? Do you have a a system, a a discipline of memorizing every card played?

Omar Sharif16:06

Yeah.

Omar Sharif16:06

Um, no, I don't think that you need that very much. What you need to have to become a good player at bridge.

Omar Sharif16:13

is first of all to have a a great passion for it, because it's a very difficult game to learn and it takes a very long time and generally people give up.

Omar Sharif16:23

Before they've had time to enjoy the intricacies of it, it takes over two years to become an average bridge player.

Omar Sharif16:32

And people give it up because they think they're not gifted for it. But in fact, if you go on and persevere and try to get better, you do eventually. But no one has that amount of time to waste.

Omar Sharif16:44

Yeah.

Presenter16:44

Hi.

Omar Sharif16:45

You will see.

Presenter16:45

Coolest.

Omar Sharif16:45

Dishes.

Presenter16:45

So many card players are.

Presenter16:47

I suppose I am. As far as bridge cleaning is concerned, I mean, do you want to wear the same pair of socks at a chat?

Omar Sharif16:51

But

Omar Sharif16:53

Uh well, if I've done very well the day before, I just don't change anything that I'm wearing, however dirty they are.

Omar Sharif17:03

Ah, now I think I've I'd like to have one of my all-time favorite ladies, and that's Edith Piaf.

Omar Sharif17:11

and we'll have her doing her great classic La Vien Rose.

Presenter17:46

Edit BF.

Presenter17:48

Now we talked about cards, your other passion, horses. You keep a stable.

Presenter17:53

Yeah.

Omar Sharif17:53

Yes, I keep a stable, but it's not a very large stable. What I'm really fascinated with is the breeding aspect in racing horses. And I have a little share in a stud farm in Normandy where I keep just a few mares, the five mares, and every year I study the bloodlines and try to send them to the best possible stallion that I can get. And it's very exciting when spring comes and the little foals are born. It's one of the greatest thrills in the world to see a foal being born and feeling well maybe this little horse will win the derby one day.

Omar Sharif18:30

What are your present activities? You've collaborated on a book about yourself?

Omar Sharif18:34

Yes. Do you know, I I read so much about myself and I felt that this wasn't quite uh right. And I decided, well, I'm going to do an interview with myself.

Omar Sharif18:46

And

Omar Sharif18:47

see if if if I I'll agree more with my own interviewing of myself uh than with what was written about me. And I just it it's it's a lot of my impressions and a lot of the great and famous people that I met in my life. And I thought that I would allow the public to share in these uh experiences that I had. Also the experience of arriving in Hollywood during the last glamorous days of Hollywood when there were still huge movie stars and big producers and people gave the most fabulous parties where you saw th the most glamorous women and the most handsome men and all that. And I just thought that I would

Omar Sharif19:31

put this down in any any order as it as they came to my mind. Also a little bit about my childhood, my background, a bit about my mum and dad and all that.

Omar Sharif19:41

Back to music. What next?

Omar Sharif19:43

A few years ago in New York, I discovered a young musician and he became then extremely famous and he's written letters to me since telling me, you were right, I am good. And this is Barry White. Oh yes. Where did you find him? In a little place in New York, in a little place in Haarlem, where he was playing. And he was I thought he was brilliant and I told him so. And he was totally unknown at the time.

Omar Sharif20:09

And he became extremely famous overnight and uh for two or three years you heard nothing but Barry White. And this is him doing Let the Music Play.

Speaker 420:20

Let's remain

Speaker 420:24

I just wanna dance a night away.

Speaker 420:28

Here, right, dear, right, dear, where I'm gonna say.

Speaker 420:34

Oh my god.

Speaker 420:39

We got some music playoff.

Speaker 420:43

Did I feel this misery is gone?

Presenter20:48

Barry White. How good would you be at looking after yourself on this island, Umar? Uh could you build somewhere to live? Or are you

Omar Sharif20:55

You good with your hands at making things? Um no, I'm very bad because I never had to do anything with my hands.

Omar Sharif21:01

And I think it'd be a very good thing for me if I had to. If you were pushed, you could do it. I think I could, yes, because look, for instance, I can't sing to save my life. And yet when I had to sing in Funny Girl, I managed.

Omar Sharif21:14

Fairly decently.

Omar Sharif21:17

Would you try to Okay.

Omar Sharif21:18

Uh Or would you

Presenter21:19

Yeah.

Omar Sharif21:20

Settle down and wait.

Presenter21:22

Yeah.

Omar Sharif21:22

I don't know if I wouldn't after a while long to get back to music and activity and civilization, as it were, to hustle and bustle again.

Omar Sharif21:33

On the other hand, I think one might get used to it and say, Oh, this is beautiful. What was I doing all these years in the middle of all that pollution and all? What have you got for us next?

Omar Sharif21:45

Well, I've got Gilles Berbeco. I think he's wonderful, and especially when you see him perform. I think he's one of the greatest living performers. And this is a particularly beautiful song, which is very French, but French in a way that uh can be understood by everybody. And it's got beautiful words. It's called Sul sur son étoile, which means alone on one's star.

Speaker 422:11

Second

Speaker 422:12

Bus one.

Speaker 422:14

The cat

Speaker 422:16

Kelke so zudanayev klonapa.

Speaker 422:24

Te lom na pas c'est cona besoin de quelcan u tenamu u biandan cotpin.

Speaker 422:38

Couldn't own that tongue.

Presenter22:40

Gilbert Beco, Serle Sier Sonnetoile. That's lovely.

Presenter22:45

But now

Omar Sharif22:46

Now we come to your last record.

Omar Sharif22:48

Well, to end up, I'd really like to have the voice of my other favorite lady, because this particular one, I made a film with her and I personally was very much in love with her while we were making the film.

Omar Sharif23:02

This is Barbara Streison.

Omar Sharif23:04

And the song is actually from Funny Girl, from the film, and it's called Don't Train on My Parade.

Speaker 423:16

Don't tell me not to live, just sit in cutter. Life's candy and the sun's a ball of butter. Don't bring around a cloud to rain on my parade.

Speaker 423:29

Telling me not to fly, I simply got to If someone takes a spill it's me and not you Who told you you're allowed to rain on my

Presenter23:39

Barbara Streisen

Presenter23:41

If you could take only one disk of

Omar Sharif23:43

Of the eight that you've played us, which would it be? I think finally that I'd take Frank Sinatra because he represented many years for me of listening and all the other singers come and go and Frank Sinatra stays.

Presenter23:56

Frank Sinatra all the way. And one luxury to take with you.

Presenter24:01

One thing of no practical use.

Presenter24:03

Can I have a deck of cards?

Omar Sharif24:05

Yeah.

Presenter24:05

Uh

Omar Sharif24:05

Please. I don't think I could live without a deck of cards in my hand.

Presenter24:06

Yeah.

Presenter24:09

Right. You'd better have the full set, as many decks, a whole crate of

Omar Sharif24:14

Yes, I need

Presenter24:14

Yes, I need that very badly.

Presenter24:17

And one book, and we've got a little list with the the Bible and Shakespeare are already on the island and we don't allow multi-volume encyclopedias.

Omar Sharif24:25

No, I'd like to have

Omar Sharif24:27

The Little Prince by Saint-Exupéry. I suppose it's called L L Le Petit Prince. Yes, The Little Prince. The Little Prince, because I think in that book is all the things that I believe in in life. All the philosophy of life for me is summed up in that beautiful little story of The Little Prince, who was stranded also in the desert on a on a sort of island of his own.

Omar Sharif24:49

And we'll let you take one picture as well, one painting. Yes. I think I take a poster of Toulouse-Lautrec with all the Moulin Rouge girls, because I think I get very lonely there not seeing

Omar Sharif25:03

any girls at all. And I think I look at that poster with those lovely nineteenth century type girls with all the frills lifting their legs up doing the concourse.

Presenter25:12

Right. And thank you, Omar Sharif, for letting us hear your Desert Island disc. Thank you so much, Roy. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 125:30

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.