Olga Zabotkina was born on 18 January 1936 in Leningrad, USSR. She studied at the Leningrad Choreographic School (class of N. A. Kamkova and V. K. Ivanova). She graduated and joined the Kirov Ballet (now Mariinsky) in 1953 and danced with them until 1978. ​

Among her repertoire are Queen in Sleeping Beauty, Mercedes and Street Dancer in Don Quixote and character roles in Spartacus, Gayane, Legend of Love, Swan Lake, Raymonda, Stone Flower, Laurencia and Egyptian Nights.

​Óscar Arístides Renta Fiallo (22 July 1932 – 20 October 2014), known professionally as Oscar de la Renta, was a Dominican fashion designer. Born in Santo Domingo, he was trained by Cristóbal Balenciaga and Antonio del Castillo. De la Renta became internationally known in the 1960s as one of the couturiers who dressed Jacqueline Kennedy. He worked for Lanvin and Balmain. His eponymous fashion house has boutiques around the world including in Harrods of London and Madison Avenue in New York.

​​Óscar Arístides Renta Fiallo, the youngest of seven children and the only boy in his family, was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, to a Dominican mother, Carmen María Antonia Fiallo, and a Puerto Rican father, Óscar Avelino De La Renta, owner of an insurance company. His mother's family were so embedded in Dominican society that they could count poets, scholars, and businessmen, as well as top army brass among their members. One maternal  received every degree the University of Santo Domingo could offer, and another maternal uncle was a diplomat and poet.

On his father's side, De la Renta's great-great grandfather José Ortíz de la Renta was the first mayor of Ponce, Puerto Rico, elected by popular vote and who had the distinction of serving as mayor eight times, the most ever for the city.

De la Renta was raised Catholic in a protective family. His mother died from complications of multiple sclerosis when he was 18.

At the age of 18, he went to study painting in Spain at the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. For extra money, he drew clothes for newspapers and fashion houses. After Francesca Lodge, the wife of John Davis Lodge, the U.S. Ambassador to Spain, saw some of his dress sketches, she commissioned de la Renta to design a gown for her daughter. The dress appeared on the cover of Life magazine that fall. He quickly became interested in the world of fashion design and began sketching for leading Spanish fashion houses, which soon led to an apprenticeship with Spain's most renowned couturier, Cristóbal Balenciaga. He considered Cristóbal Balenciaga his mentor.

In 1961, de la Renta left Spain to join Antonio del Castillo as a couture assistant at Lanvin in Paris.

In 1963, de la Renta turned to Diana Vreeland, the editor-in-chief of Vogue, for advice, saying that what he really wanted was to "get into ready to wear, because that's where the money is". Vreeland replied, "Then go to Arden because you will make your reputation faster. She is not a designer, so she will promote you. At the other place, you will always be eclipsed by the name of Dior." De la Renta proceeded to work for Arden for two years in New York City before he went to work for Jane Derby, an American fashion house. When Derby died in August 1965, de la Renta took over the label.

In 1966, de la Renta became the third husband of Françoise de Langlade (1921–1983), an editor-in-chief of French Vogue who once worked for the fashion house of Elsa Schiaparelli. They were married until she died of cancer in 1983. After her death, de la Renta adopted a boy from the Dominican Republic and named him Moisés.

In 1967 and 1968, de la Renta won the Coty Award (the U.S. fashion industry "Oscars") and in 1973 was inducted into the Coty Hall of Fame.

From 1973 to 1976, and from 1986 to 1988, he served as President of the CFDA. He is also a two-time winner of the American Fashion Critic's Award.

In 1977, de la Renta launched his fragrance, OSCAR, followed by an accessories line in 2001 and a homewares line in 2002. The new business venture included 100 home furnishings for Century Furniture featuring dining tables, upholstered chairs, and couches. ​

De la Renta had stepchildren from both marriages. His son-in-law Alex Bolen currently operates as Chief Executive Officer, and stepdaughter Eliza Bolen serves as Vice President of Licensing at Oscar de la Renta, LLC.

​Omar 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.

Omar 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.

​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.

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.

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.