Shalini Sharma encounters Omar Sharif, golden boy of a golden age of cinema, in a Parisian bar

It's just like in the movies. He’s famous and he’s sitting at the bar, twirling his drink. Everyone around knows who he is, but everyone gives him his space; the man wears his need for privacy like a badge. I walk in and recognise the sardonic face immediately, despite the wrinkles and the silver, leonine hair. I walk up and ask, ‘‘Could I spend some time with you?’’ He hesitates, and then smiles that familiar, dangerous smile. ‘‘Of course’’.

That’s the romance of Paris. Where you can meet a famous star at a bar and end up spending an evening with him.

Omar Sharif has aged. He looks somewhat bored with life. The trademark cynical expression has faded. But the eyes are still mesmeric and watchful, the manners elegant and sophisticated. He listens to you attentively, but doesn’t seem particularly careful about what he has to say; he’s beyond that. Stardom claimed him but could not hold him hostage to its rules.

‘‘India’’, he murmurs. ‘‘Your actor Amitabh Bachchan is the biggest star in Egypt. Even I was never as famous there as he is.’’ Sub-continental memories surface. ‘‘For many years I used to come regularly to Bombay for the racing season. Some of my horses even ran for the races there. I would enjoy my trips in that city immensely thanks to your actor I S Johar.’’ (Poor Johar, insular Bollywood scoffed at the maverick actor when he claimed to be friends with international stars.) Sharif is nostalgic about him: ‘‘A very witty and intelligent man who became one of my closest friends after we acted together in Lawrence of Arabia. After he died, I did not feel like returning (to India).’’

Today his Indian connection runs only as far as Kabir Bedi. ‘‘He was this good looking Asian actor trying to make it internationally. I saw a lot of me in him. I felt we could be slotted in the same roles. By the time he came (to Hollywood), I had started turning down movie offers. I would suggest Kabir’s name instead. Unfortunately, he was not able to become a huge success, though he was very popular in Italy.’’

Hollywood is notoriously tough on Asians (as Sharif likes to consider himself), was even more so in Sharif’s time, the ’60s and ’70s. But obviously, Sharif’s exotic charm proved too hard to resist because he became the epitome of the passionate screen idol.

‘‘My entry into America was pure luck. They were looking for someone to do eastern roles in Hollywood. I was this Egyptian actor who had finished the very successful Lawrence of Arabia. They asked me to come over. I went across to America, never expecting to stay on too long. But my looks went beyond the strictly eastern mould and I ended up acting Russian (Dr Zhivago) and other European characters.’’

With a flick of an expensive gold watch-studded wrist comes the disassociation. ‘‘Yes, I was successful but I did not enjoy Hollywood. America never appealed to me. I hate hamburgers. I don’t like Coke or Pepsi. I am not trying to be a snob but my tastes are different from what you find there. I have always been more comfortable in Europe. Even my friends were from the British film industry — Peter O’Toole, Lawrence Olivier, Richard Burton. They were from the theatre background so they understood art, literature and music. I could relate to them.’’

He pauses and looks approvingly at the elegant Parisians draped fetchingly around the bar. ‘‘Americans are always in a hurry. They are so brash. It is a society which celebrates its success with endless spending. I am not trashing American culture. It stands for a lot of things that one can admire. But the country was not for me. I lived there but I would keep running away to different parts of the world.’’

You believe that. Part of the Omar Sharif legend was born around casino tables and international racing tracks; he was as notorious for breaking the bank at blackjack as he was for losing flagrantly, for dropping £124,000 on horses a day after losing £750,000 at roulette.

‘‘I had become a hostage to gambling. When something becomes a necessity, it ceases to be enjoyment. Gambling had become necessary and important for me. I was losing money heavily, bankruptcy threatened. It was time to move on. So one day, I just stopped. I sold my horses, gave up on casinos and never went back.’’

Sharif moved on to bridge, which only enhanced the enigmatic aura around him. Winner of numerous international tournaments, he even had one named after him. ‘‘But I gave up on bridge too since, in its own way, it is a form of gambling. I have not played a game of bridge for years’’, he says. But his bridge column continues to be syndicated all over the world. ‘‘I have no idea which papers run them. Sometimes even I get surprised when I see the countries in which it turns up.’’

That wasn’t the only arena in which his reel-life and real life personae merged, according to the glossies. The playboy image tracked him from the movies to the casinos. Barbra Streisand, Sharif’s co-star in Funny Girl, was his most controversial dalliance. The Arab world was outraged when amorous photos of the two were splashed in the media; some countries even banned his films. Then there was the beautiful Catherine Deneuve, as French as they come. And Sharif had never made any secret of his love for all things French.

Sharif, though, is outraged by all such references. ‘‘I find that insulting. To be called a playboy or a womaniser — a man should consider that humiliating. The success of a lover is to have one woman. Only a failed lover has many women. All these rumours were circulated by media executives to help our movies together.’’

Can one believe him? To Sharif’s credit, he has not travelled the multiple wives circuit of most screen icons. His only marriage was to a famous Egyptian actress, Faten Hamama. ‘‘She was my only wife. We were married for 16 years. We had one child, a son. Then I went to America, she stayed back in Egypt. Life separated us. Soon I found myself straying, maybe because of the loneliness. I loved her very much but temptations like these are an insult to that love. I was in agony. I suggested it is better we part then continue like this. So we divorced. I never married again. I also never loved another.’’

What about Hamama? ‘‘She married another man.’’

His life now moves in an even pace for one so distressingly dashing once. ‘‘I have given up movies. I only get trashy, stupid roles which I refuse to do. I spend my life between Cairo and Paris. In Cairo I have a large place which I share with my son Tareq. He is married with a child. I stay a few months there and then I come to Paris. I like this city. No one disturbs you here. People allow you to be yourself in Paris. They understand privacy.’’

Son Tareq is the good Arab boy who eschewed the glamour of films.

‘‘I came from a very prosperous, very respectable family of merchants. My father never forgave me for joining the movies. My success did not matter. He considered my profession as an actor a failure for the family. So it was good when my son went back to the family business.’’

Retired Hollywood icons earn their living by spinning out kiss-and tell autobiographies. It doesn’t require an astute publisher to figure out that Sharif’s would be the stuff that could set the Sahara on fire. But the actor is disgusted at the suggestion. ‘‘I know my biography would be of great interest — I have interacted closely with kings, presidents, politicians, tycoons, famous actors and singers. Many are close friends of mine. But when you write about your life you also have to write about people close to you — family, friends, and colleagues. Is it right that you expose their life too?’’

There is still a touch of the Bedouin in this citizen of the world who yearns to remain grounded. He’s restless now and you step back to give him that space to breathe free from questions that seek to trace the man behind the star. ‘‘We Asians’’, he murmurs at one stage, ‘‘We don’t know when to hold back. Sometimes we push too hard.’’

He should know, the only ‘‘Asian’’ to have conquered Hollywood.