Henry James OM (15 April 1843 – 28 February 1916) was an American author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the son of Henry James Sr. and the brother of renowned philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James. Born in the United States, James largely relocated to Europe as a young man, and eventually settled in England, becoming a British citizen in 1915, a year before his death. James was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911, 1912, and 1916. He is best known for a number of novels dealing with the social and marital interplay between émigré Americans, English people, and continental Europeans. Examples of such novels include The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors, and The Wings of the Dove. His later works were increasingly experimental. In describing the internal states of mind and social dynamics of his characters, James often made use of a style in which ambiguous or contradictory motives and impressions were overlaid or juxtaposed in the discussion of a character's psyche. For their unique ambiguity, as well as for other aspects of their composition, his late works have been compared to impressionist painting. His novella The Turn of the Screw has garnered a reputation as the most analysed and ambiguous ghost story in the English language, and remains his most widely adapted work in other media. He also wrote a number of other highly regarded ghost stories, and is considered one of the greatest masters of the field. James published articles and books of criticism, travel, biography, autobiography, and plays. BiographyHenry James was born at 21 Washington Place in New York City on 15 April 1843. Both of his parents were of Irish and Scottish descent. His father Henry James, Sr. was intelligent and steadfastly congenial, a lecturer and philosopher who had inherited independent means from his father, an Albany banker and investor. His mother Mary Walsh came from a wealthy family long settled in New York City. Henry James had three brothers and one sister. Before he was a year old, his father sold the house at Washington Place and took the family to Europe, where they lived for a time in England. The family returned to New York in 1845, and Henry spent much of his childhood living between his paternal grandmother's home in Albany, and a house on 14th Street in Manhattan. His education was calculated by his father to expose him to many influences, primarily scientific and philosophical. Between 1855 and 1860, the James household travelled to London, Paris, Geneva, Boulogne-sur-Mer, and Newport, Rhode Island, according to the father's current interests and publishing ventures, retreating to the United States when funds were low. Henry studied primarily with tutors, and briefly attended schools while the family travelled in Europe. Their longest stays were in France, where Henry began to feel at home and became fluent in French. He had a stutter, which seems to have manifested itself only when he spoke English; in French, he did not stutter. In 1860, the family returned to Newport. There, Henry became a friend of painter John La Farge, who introduced him to French literature, and in particular, to Balzac. James later called Balzac his "greatest master", and said that he had learned more about the craft of fiction from him than from anyone else. In 1862, Henry attended Harvard Law School, but realised that he was not interested in studying law. He pursued his interest in literature and formed lifelong friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the future Supreme Court justice, and with James T. Fields and Annie Adams Fields, his first professional mentors. His first published work was a review of a stage performance, "Miss Maggie Mitchell in Fanchon the Cricket," published in 1863. About a year later, "A Tragedy of Error", his first short story, was published anonymously. In 1869, he settled in London, where he established relationships with Macmillan and other publishers, who paid for serial installments that they published in book form. The audience for these serialized novels was largely made up of middle-class women, and James struggled to fashion serious literary work within the strictures imposed by editors' and publishers' notions of what was suitable for young women to read. He lived in rented rooms, but was able to join gentlemen's clubs that had libraries and where he could entertain male friends. He was introduced to English society by Henry Adams and Charles Milnes Gaskell, the latter introducing him to the Travellers' and the Reform Clubs. During a 14-month trip through Europe in 1869–70, he met John Ruskin, Charles Dickens, Matthew Arnold, William Morris, and George Eliot. Rome impressed him profoundly. He attempted to support himself as a freelance writer in Rome, When his effort failed, he returned to New York City. In 1871, he published his first novel, Watch and Ward, in serial form in the Atlantic Monthly. The novel was later published in book form in 1878. During 1874 and 1875, he published Transatlantic Sketches, A Passionate Pilgrim, and Roderick Hudson. During this early period in his career, he was influenced by Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the fall of 1875, he moved to the Latin Quarter of Paris, where he met Zola, Daudet, Maupassant, Turgenev, and others. He stayed in Paris for only a year before moving to London. Aside from two trips to America, he spent the next three decades—the rest of his life—in Europe. While living in London, James continued to follow the careers of the French realists, Émile Zola in particular. Their stylistic methods influenced his own work in the years to come. Hawthorne's influence on him faded during this period, replaced by George Eliot and Ivan Turgenev. In England, he met the leading figures of politics and culture. In the first few years he published The American (1877), The Europeans (1878), a revision of Watch and Ward (1878), French Poets and Novelists (1878), Hawthorne (1879), and several shorter works of fiction. In 1878, Daisy Miller established his fame on both sides of the Atlantic. He also began his first masterpiece, The Portrait of a Lady, which appeared in 1881. The period from 1882 to 1883 was marked by several losses. His mother died in January 1882, while James was in Washington, DC, on an extended visit to America. He returned to his parents' home in Cambridge, where he was together with all four of his siblings for the first time in 15 years. He returned to Europe in mid-1882, but was back in America by the end of the year following the death of his father. Emerson, an old family friend, died in 1882. His brother Wilkie and friend Turgenev both died in 1883. In 1884, James made another visit to Paris, where he met again with Zola, Daudet, and Goncourt. In 1886, he published The Bostonians and The Princess Casamassima, both influenced by the French writers he had studied assiduously. During this time, he became friends with Robert Louis Stevenson, John Singer Sargent, Edmund Gosse, George du Maurier, Paul Bourget, and Constance Fenimore Woolson. His third novel from the 1880s was The Tragic Muse. Although he was following the precepts of Zola in his novels of the '80s, their tone and attitude are closer to the fiction of Alphonse Daudet. The lack of critical and financial success for his novels during this period led him to try writing for the theatre. After the stage failure of Guy Domville in 1895, James was near despair and thoughts of death plagued him. His depression was compounded by the deaths of those closest to him, including his sister Alice in 1892; his friend Wolcott Balestier in 1891; and Stevenson and Fenimore Woolson in 1894. The sudden death of Fenimore Woolson in January 1894, and the speculations of suicide surrounding her death, were particularly painful for him. In 1897–1898, he moved to Rye, Sussex and wrote The Turn of the Screw; 1899–1900 had the publication of The Awkward Age and The Sacred Fount. During 1902–1904, he wrote The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, and The Golden Bowl.
In 1904, he revisited America and lectured on Balzac. In 1906–1910, he published The American Scene and edited the "New York Edition", a 24-volume collection of his works. In 1910, his brother William died. In 1913, he wrote his autobiographies, A Small Boy and Others, and Notes of a Son and Brother. In 1915, he became a British citizen and was awarded the Order of Merit the following year. He died on 28 February 1916, in Chelsea, London, and was cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. As he requested, his ashes were buried in Cambridge Cemetery in Massachusetts.
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ProfileRobert Doisneau (14 April 1912 – 1 April 1994) was a French photographer. In the 1930s, he made photographs on the streets of Paris. He was a champion of humanist photography and together with Henri Cartier-Bresson a pioneer of photojournalism. Doisneau is renowned for his 1950 image Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (The Kiss by the City Hall), a photograph of a couple kissing on a busy Parisian street. He was appointed a Chevalier (Knight) of the Legion of Honour in 1984 by then French president, François Mitterrand. Robert Doisneau, est un photographe humaniste français, né le 14 avril 1912 à Gentilly et mort le 1er avril 1994 à Montrouge. Il est, aux côtés de Willy Ronis, d'Édouard Boubat, d'Izis, d'Émile Savitry ou d'Albert Monier l'un des principaux représentants du courant de la photographie humaniste française et l’un des photographes les plus populaires du xxe siècle. BiographyDoisneau's father, a plumber, died in active service in World War I when Robert was about four. His mother died when he was seven. He then was raised by an unloving aunt. At thirteen he enrolled at the École Estienne, a craft school from which he graduated in 1929 with diplomas in engraving and lithography. There he had his first contact with the arts, taking classes in figure drawing and still life. When he was 16 he took up amateur photography, but was reportedly so shy that he started by photographing cobble-stones before progressing to children and then adults. At the end of the 1920s Doisneau found work as a draughtsman (lettering artist) in the advertising industry at Atelier Ullmann (Ullmann Studio), a creative graphics studio that specialised in the pharmaceutical industry. Here he took an opportunity to change career by also acting as camera assistant in the studio and then becoming a staff photographer The marvels of daily life are so exciting; no movie director can arrange the unexpected that you find in the street." Doisneau was known for his modest, playful, and ironic images of amusing juxtapositions, mingling social classes, and eccentrics in contemporary Paris streets and cafes. Influenced by the work of André Kertész, Eugène Atget, and Henri Cartier-Bresson, he presented a charming vision of human frailty and life as a series of quiet, incongruous moments. Doisneau's work gives unusual prominence and dignity to children's street culture, such as children at play in the city, unfettered by parents. His work treats their play with seriousness and respect. In 1931 he left both the studio and advertising, taking a job as an assistant with the modernist photographer André Vigneau. In 1932, he sold his first photographic story to Excelsior magazine. In 1934, he began working as an industrial advertising photographer for the Renault car factory at Boulogne-Billancourt. Working at Renault increased Doisneau's interest in working with photography and people. In 1936 Doisneau married Pierrette Chaumaison whom he had met in 1934 when she was cycling through a village where he was on holiday. They had two daughters, Annette (b. 1942) and Francine (b. 1947). Five years later in 1939, he was dismissed because he was constantly late. In 1991 he said that the years at the Renault car factory marked "the beginning of his career as a photographer and the end of his youth." He was forced to try freelance advertising, engraving, and postcard photography to earn his living. At that time the French postcard industry was the largest in Europe, postcards served as greetings cards as well as vacation souvenirs. In 1939, he was later hired by Charles Rado of the Rapho photographic agency and traveled throughout France in search of picture stories. This is where he took his first professional street photographs. Doisneau worked at the Rapho agency until the outbreak of World War II, whereupon he was drafted into the French army as both a soldier and photographer. He was in the army until 1940 and from then until the end of the war in 1945 used his draughtsmanship, lettering artistry, and engraving skills to forge passports and identification papers for the French Resistance. Some of Doisneau's most memorable photographs were taken after the war. He returned to freelance photography and sold photographs to Life and other international magazines. He briefly joined the Alliance Photo Agency but rejoined the Rapho agency in 1946 and remained with them throughout his working life, despite receiving an invitation from Henri Cartier-Bresson to join Magnum Photos. I don't photograph life as it is, but life as I would like it to be. His photographs never ridiculed the subjects; thus he refused to photograph women whose heads had been shaved as punishment for sleeping with Germans. In 1948 he was contracted by Vogue to work as a fashion photographer. The editors believed he would bring a fresh and more casual look for the magazine but Doisneau didn't enjoy photographing beautiful women in elegant surroundings; he preferred street photography. When he could escape from the studio, he photographed ever more in the streets of Paris. Le Groupe des XV was established in 1946 in Paris to promote photography as art and drawing attention to the preservation of French photographic heritage, and Doisneau joined in 1950 and participated alongside Rene-Jacques, Willy Ronis, and Pierre Jahan. After the group was disbanded he joined the less exclusive and more militant Les 30 x 40, the Club Photographique de Paris. In 1950 Doisneau created his most recognizable work for Life – Le Baiser de l'hôtel de ville (Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville), a photograph of a couple kissing in the busy streets of Paris, which became an internationally recognised symbol of young love in Paris. The identity of the couple remained a mystery until 1992 when a couple who thought they were the protagonists in the photo sued the photographer. Doisneau won the lawsuit after revealing the real identity of the kissing couple. The couple in Le baiser were Françoise Delbart, 20, and Jacques Carteaud, 23 at the time, both aspiring actors. They posed at the Place de la Concorde, the Rue de Rivoli and finally the Hôtel de Ville. The photograph was published on 12 June 1950, issue of Life. In the same year, Doisneau gave Françoise an original print of the photograph, bearing Doisneau's signature and stamp, as part of the payment for her "work". In April 2005 she sold the print at auction for €155,000 to an unidentified Swiss collector via the Paris auctioneers Artcurial Briest-Poulain-Le Fur. The 1950s were Doisneau's peak, but the 1960s were his wilderness years. In the 1970s Europe began to change and editors looked for new reportage that would show the sense of a new social era. All over Europe, the old-style picture magazines were closing as television received the public's attention. Doisneau continued to work, producing children's books, advertising photography, and celebrity portraits including Alberto Giacometti, Jean Cocteau, Fernand Léger, Georges Braque, and Pablo Picasso. Doisneau worked with writers and poets such as Blaise Cendrars and Jacques Prévert, and he credited Prevert with giving him the confidence to photograph the everyday street scenes that most people simply ignored. Doisneau was in many ways a shy and humble man, similar to his photography, still delivering his own work at the height of his fame. He chastised his younger daughter Francine for charging an "indecent" daily fee of £2,000 for his work on a beer advertising campaign – he wanted only the rate of an "artisan photographer". From 1979 until his death, Doisneau's elder daughter Annette Doisneau's wife Pierrette Chaumaison died in 1993 suffering from Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. Robert Doisneau died six months later in 1994, having had a triple heart bypass and suffering from acute pancreatitis. His elder daughter Annette(who worked as his assistant since 1979) said: "We won in the courts (meaning the lawsuit of the photo The Kiss in 1992), but my father was deeply shocked. He discovered a world of lies, and it hurt him. 'The Kiss' ruined the last years of his life. Add that to my mother suffering from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and I think it's fair to say he died of sadness." He lived in southern Paris (Gentilly, Val-de-Marne, Montrouge, and the 13th arrondissement) throughout his life. He is buried in the cemetery at Raizeux beside his wife. The photography of Doisneau has had a revival since his death in 1994. Many of his portraits and photographs of Paris from the end of World War II through the 1950s have been turned into calendars and postcards, and have become icons of French life. Maybe if I were 20, success would change me. But now I'm a dinosaur of photography. BiographieRobert Doisneau est né dans le sud de la banlieue parisienne au sein d'une famille bourgeoise. Il étudie les Arts graphiques à l’École Estienne et obtient son diplôme de graveur et de lithographe en 1929. En octobre 1929, il entre à l’atelier de Léon Ullmann en tant que dessinateur de lettres. Il y rencontre Lucien Chauffard qui dirige le studio photographique de l’atelier. Celui-ci l’initie à la photographie et l’oriente vers André Vigneau qui, à l’automne 1931, cherchait un assistant et avec lequel il découvre la Nouvelle Objectivité photographique. La même année il rencontre Pierrette Chaumaison avec qui il se marie trois ans plus tard. En 1932, il vend son premier reportage photographique, qui est diffusé dans l’Excelsior. En 1934, Lucien Chauffard, le présente au chef du service photo du constructeur automobile Renault à Boulogne-Billancourt, qui l’embauche comme photographe industriel, mais, du fait de ses retards successifs (et après avoir, de son propre aveu, tenté de truquer ses cartes de pointage), il se fait renvoyer cinq ans plus tard, en 1939. Toujours grâce à Lucien Chauffard, Doisneau rencontre peu avant le début de la Seconde Guerre mondiale la photographe Ergy Landau qui le présente à Charles Rado, le fondateur de l’agence Rapho. Son premier reportage, sur le canoë en Dordogne, est interrompu par la déclaration de guerre et la mobilisation générale. Désormais sans emploi, Doisneau tente de devenir photographe illustrateur indépendant. Il sera un des plus prolifique collaborateurs de la revue artistique et littéraire Le Point fondée en 1936 par Pierre Betz et l’éditeur d’art Pierre Braun, pour laquelle il réalise ses premiers portraits de Picasso, Braque, Paul Léautaud. Après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, Robert Doisneau devient un photographe indépendant en intégrant officiellement, dès 1946, l’agence Rapho. Il se met alors à produire et à réaliser de nombreux reportages photographiques sur des sujets très divers : l’actualité parisienne, le Paris populaire, des sujets sur la province ou l’étranger (URSS, États-Unis, Yougoslavie, etc.). Certains de ses reportages paraîtront dans des magazines comme Life, Paris Match, Réalités, Point de vue, Regards, etc. En 1947, Robert Doisneau rejoint le Groupe des XV aux côtés de René-Jacques, de Willy Ronis, de Pierre Jahan. La même année, il rencontre Robert Giraud, chez l'antiquaire Romi, c’est alors le début d'une longue amitié et d'une fructueuse collaboration. Doisneau publiera une trentaine d’albums dont La Banlieue de Paris (Seghers, 1949), avec des textes de Blaise Cendrars. Il travaillera pour Vogue, de 1948 à 1953 en qualité de collaborateur permanent. Il est aussi ami de Jacques Yonnet et ses photographies illustrent son fameux Enchantements sur Paris (Denoël, 1954) devenu La ville des maléfices (Biblio). Le photographe à effectué de nombreuses escapades en Limousin. Durant son enfance en Corrèze, puis lors de séjours à Saint-Céré dans le Lot des années 1930 à 1991. En passant par le Limousin, Robert Doisneau a saisi avec son Rollefleix des images de la fête de la quintaine de Saint-Léonard en 1951. À Aubusson, il se passionne pour le travail des lissiers. Il exalte la noblesse du travail dans ses clichés des ouvriers porcelainiers des usines Tharaud à Limoges. Il aimait aussi retrouver ses deux complices limousins, le journaliste et écrivain Robert Giraud, et le peintre Jean-Joseph Sanfourche. Son talent de photographe sera récompensé à diverses reprises : le prix Kodak en 1947, le prix Niépce en 1956. En 1960, Doisneau monte une exposition au Musée d'art contemporain de Chicago. En 1975, il est l'invité d'honneur du festival des Rencontres d'Arles (France). Une exposition lui y est consacrée. Il recevra d'autres prix pour son travail : le prix du livre des Rencontres d'Arles pour L'Enfant et la Colombe (1979) et pour Trois secondes d'éternité en 1980, chez Contrejour, le Grand Prix national de la photographie en 1983 et le prix Balzac en 1986. En 1986, le festival des Rencontres d'Arles présente une exposition intitulée De Vogue à Femmes, Robert Doisneau. En 1992, Doisneau présente une rétrospective au Modern Art Oxford (en). Ce sera la dernière exposition de ses œuvres organisée de son vivant. En 1994, le festival des Rencontres d'Arles présentait Hommage à Robert Doisneau. Robert Doisneau est l'un des photographes français les plus connus à l'étranger notamment grâce à des photographies comme Le Baiser de l'hôtel de ville. Ses très nombreuses photographies en noir et blanc des rues de Paris d'après-guerre et de sa banlieue et de photos d'écoliers ont fait sa renommée. Doisneau est « un passant patient » qui conserve toujours une certaine distance vis-à-vis de ses sujets. Il guette l'anecdote, la petite histoire. Ses photographies sont souvent empreintes d'humour mais également de nos Further interestBooks
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ProfileOmar Sharif (born Michel Dimitri Chalhoub, 10 April 1932 – 10 July 2015) was an Egyptian film and television actor. He began his career in his native country in the 1950s, but is best known for his appearances in British, American, French, and Italian productions. His films include Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Funny Girl (1968). He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Lawrence of Arabia. He won three Golden Globe Awards and a César Award. Sharif, who spoke Arabic, English, French, Spanish, Greek, and Italian fluently, was often cast in British and American films as a foreigner of some sort. He was a lifelong horse racing enthusiast, and at one time ranked among the world's top contract bridge players. BiographyOmar Sharif was born Michel Dimitri Chalhoub in Alexandria, Kingdom of Egypt (now Arab Republic of Egypt) in a well-to-do family. His father, Joseph Chalhoub, was a successful precious woods merchant, and his mother Claire Saada, was an elegant and charming society hostess who counted the Egypt's King Farouk as a regular visitor and friend prior to his deposition in 1952. And after the political change of Egypt, Sharif's father lumber business suffered a lot. In his youth, Sharif studied at Victoria College, Alexandria, where he showed a talent for languages. He later graduated from Cairo University with a degree in mathematics and physics. He worked for a while in his father's precious wood business before beginning his acting career in Egypt. In 1955, he changed his name to Omar Sharif (Sharif means "noble" or "nobleman") and converted from Antiochian Greek Christians to Islam in order to marry fellow Egyptian actress Faten Hamama. In 1954, Sharif began his acting career in Egypt with a role in Sira’ Fi al-Wadi (1954) ("Struggle in the Valley"), in which he played with Faten Hamama, an Eyptian film star, who gave him her first screen kiss. The two actors fell in love and were married in 1955. Their son Tarek Sharif was born in 1957 in Egypt. Sharif quickly rose to stardom, appearing in many Egyptian films in the next few years, with a few of them starring him and his wife. Sharif's first English-language role was that of the fictitious Sherif Ali in David Lean's historical epic Lawrence of Arabia starring Peter O'toole in 1962. To secure the role, Sharif had to sign a seven-film contract with Columbia at $50,000 a film. He took his son to live in Hollywood. Casting Sharif in what is now considered one of the "most demanding supporting roles in Hollywood history" was both complex and risky as he was virtually unknown at the time outside Egypt. But David Lean insisted on using ethnic actors when possible to make the film authentic. Lawrence of Arabia was a box office and critical sensation. Sharif's performance earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in Motion Picture, as well as a shared Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year in Actor category. Sharif went on to star in another Hollywood blockbuster, Anthony Mann's The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) where he played the support role of Sohaemus of Armenia, which was a commercial disappointment Sharif had his first lead role in a Hollywood movie when he was cast in the title part of Genghis Khan (1965). Produced by Irving Allen and directed by Henry Levin for Columbia, the $4.5 million epic was a box office disappointment. While making Genghis Khan Sharif heard that David Lean was making an epic love story Doctor Zhivago (1965), an adaptation of Boris Pasternak's 1957 novel. Sharif was a fan of the novel and pitched himself for one of the supporting roles; Lean decided to cast him in the lead, as Yuri Zhivago, a poet and physician. Sharif's son Tarek Sharif also appeared in the film as Yuri at the age of eight. David Lean intended the film to be a poetic portrayal of the period, with large vistas of landscapes combined with a powerful score by Maurice Jarre. The film was a huge hit. For his performance, Sharif won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama. Doctor Zhivago remains one of the top ten highest-grossing films of all time after adjusting for inflation. Starting from the 60s, as Sharif's film career became more international, he traveled and lived abroad more, stayed less in his country Egypt. He first lived in the United States and then Europe. After The Nasser government in Egypt imposed travel restrictions in the form of "exit visas", which made it difficult for Sharif to take part in international films, Sharif decided to remain in Europe between his film shoots, which means self exile of his country for the next 10 years. In 1966, he separated from his wife Faten Hamama. It was a major crossroad in Sharif's life and changed him from an established family man to a committed bachelor living in European hotels. Sharif and his wife Faten Hamama divorced in 1974. He never married again. Sharif is a polyglot who spoke Arabic, French, Greek, Italian, Spanish and English, and his accent enabled him to "play the role of a foreigner without anyone knowing exactly where I came from", which he stated proved highly successful throughout his career. Although Sharif worked in film industry and later in television for almost 60 years except a several years break, his true passion are playing bridge and racing horses. In fact, he has spent and lost huge amounts of money on his passions that he had to make movies to pay for them, as he himself admited" I would call my agent and tell him to accept any part, just to bail myself out." Sharif said bridge was his personal passion and at one time he was ranked among the world's top 50 contract bridge players. At the 1964 World Bridge Olympiad he represented the United Arab Republic bridge squad and in 1968 he was playing captain of the Egyptian team in the Olympiad. In 1967 he formed the Omar Sharif Bridge Circus to showcase bridge to the world and invited professional players including members of the Italian Blue team, which won 16 World championship titles, to tour and promote the game via exhibition matches including one watched by the Shah of Iran. Touring through Europe, the Circus attracted thousands of spectators who watched the matches via Bridge-O-Rama, a new technology that displayed bidding and cardplay on television monitors. The Omar Sharif World Individual Championship held in 1990 offered the largest total purse ($200,000) in the history of bridge. With Charles Goren and later Tannah Hirsch, Sharif contributed to a syndicated newspaper bridge column for the Chicago Tribune. He was also both author and co-author of several books on bridge. By 2000 Sharif had stopped playing bridge entirely. Having once proudly declared the game his passion, he now considered it an addiction: "I didn't want to be a slave to any passion anymore. I gave up card playing altogether, even bridge and gambling." But he co-authored a book with bridge writer David Bird, Omar Sharif Talks Bridge. Written in 2004, it includes some of his most famous deals and bridge stories. Sharif also loved horses and horse racing. For him, horse is the most noble animal with the most beautiful and harmonious lines in the animal world. He was often seen at French racecourses, with Deauville-La Touques Racecourse being his favourite. Sharif's horses won a number of important races and he had his best successes with his horse Don Bosco, who won the Prix Gontaut-Biron, Prix Perth and Prix du Muguet. He also wrote for a French horse racing magazine. Omar Sharif was a smoker and smoked about 25 cigarettes a day but quite smoking after a triple heart bypass operation in 1992. Two years later he suffered a mild heart attack in 1994. On 10 July 2015, Sharif died after suffering a heart attack at a hospital in Cairo, age 83. On 17 January 2015, less than six months earlier, Omar Shariff's ex-wife also Faten Hamama died in Cairo, age 83. After his divorce in 1974 from Faten Hamama, Sharif has been romantically involved with many women, including Ingrid Bergman, Catherine Deneuve, Julie Chrisite, his co-star in Doctor Zhivago(1965)who has proposed to him; and Barbra Streisand, his co-star in Funny Girl (1968), with whom he had fallen madly in love during the filming. The very publicized love affair almost cost him his Eyptian citizenship. But he never married again. According to his own words, no other woman ever won his heart and he never lived with another woman other than Faten Hamama, who was the love of his life. Two months prior to his death, his son said Tarek Sharif his father was also suffering from Alzheimer's disease, becoming confused when remembering some of the biggest films of his career; he would mix up the names of his best-known films, Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia, often forgetting where they were filmed. On 12 July 2015, Sharif's funeral was held at the Grand Mosque of Mushir Tantawi in eastern Cairo. The funeral was attended by a group of Sharif's relatives, friends and Egyptian actors, his coffin draped in the Egyptian flag and a black shroud. His coffin was later taken to the El-Sayeda Nafisa cemetery in southern Cairo, where he was buried. Further interestAudio
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