Omar Sharif Jr. shares threats from Arab world since revealing he is gay

THE Marcel Proust wrote: “We only heal suffering if we experience it to the fullest” and perhaps there is no more inappropriate comment on his life Omar Sharif Jr..

The actor’s grandson Omar Sharif, Sharif Jr., just 38 years old, in a strong and essential memory of self-discovery narrates his complex and brave iconoclastic life in his autobiography «A Tale of Two Omars».

Heartfelt and heroic memoirs reveal his intimidation as a child and teenager, his suicide attempt, his horror of sexually exploiting people and the tens of thousands of threats against his life when he revealed in the Arab world where he lives that he is gay.

It is also a story of survival – instilled in him by his mother’s family, who survived the Holocaust death camps – but with full compassion and empathy.

And there are wonderful details about his escapes as the only grandson of his glamorous, globalized grandfather – the legendary movie star o Lawrence of Arabia, The Dr. Zivago and Funny Girl among many others. With his huge wet eyes and dark hair, the Omar he was an unprecedented man.

In his memoirs «A Tale of Two Omars» The Omar Sharif the youngest shares memories from life with the grandfather of the movie star. The author was the best friend, protector and constant companion in the actor’s escapes. “I grew up in different worlds,” he explains in the book Omar Sharif junior. “It was my father Egyptian, my mother, Jewish and I knew early on that I was gay. “So I became a chameleon.”

After his parents divorced, he lived mainly with his mother in Montreal, spending wonderful holidays and summers with his father and grandfather Omar, as stated in the book. His father’s grandmother, Fatem Hamama, it was Egyptian an actress with a huge reputation who could rarely leave her home without being surrounded by people. He had “great taste” as he recalls Sharif junior, noting that he had villas in El Gouna in Red Sea and to Sahel in Mediterranean.

THE Sharif writes that his grandfather was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and had unexplained outbursts: “Eventually, Alzheimer’s exiled one of the most talented people in the world to an unknown landscape, lost in time and space, isolated in pieces of memories and few friends.”

He also mentions the hatred storm in Egypt, along with the movement for the revocation of his Egyptian citizenship and the ban on his entry into the country, when he decided to reveal that he is gay and explains that until today he can not return to the country.

The grandson of the kings of Hollywood on the part of his father and Holocaust survivors from that of his mother, o Omar Sharif younger learned early how to move between worlds, from its suburbs Montreal until glowing Cairo of his grandparents. His famous name always protected him wherever he went. When, in its echo Arab Spring, made the difficult decision to appear on its pages «The Advocate», he knew that his life would change forever. What he did not expect was the reaction that followed.

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