US (BBN)-Hollywood actor Omar Sharif is suffering from Alzheimer's disease and struggles to remember his most famous films, his son has revealed.
The 83-year-old Egyptian-born actor, who shot to fame in 1962 when he starred in Lawrence of Arabia and later for his title role in Doctor Zhivago in 1965, has been struggling with the illness for the last three years, reports The Telegraph.
His son Tarek El-Sharif has revealed his father has now retired from acting due to the illness, which has seen him confusing the names of his most famous films and forgetting where they were filmed.
He says his father knows he is a famous actor but confuses fans who come up to him for people he used to know whose names and faces he has forgotten.
Speaking to Spanish newspaper El Mundo, his son, who appeared in Doctor Zhivago as Yuri at the age of eight, said: "My father has Alzheimer's. It's difficult to determine what stage it's at. It's obvious he'll never improve and it will get worse.
"There are times of the day when he's better and others in which he feels confused.
"He knows who he is but not necessarily the reason people greet him. When someone seems him in the street and approaches him, he often thinks it's someone he used to know whose name and face he's forgotten when most of the time it's just a fan.
"He still knows he's a famous actor. The loss of memory affects above all specific things, details like when he was in a specific place or who he acted with in a specific film.
"He remembers for example that it was Doctor Zhivago but he's forgotten when it was filmed.
"He can talk about the film but he forgets its name or he calls it something else instead like Lawrence of Arabia."
Mr El-Sharif, the only child of the star's marriage to his former wife Faten Hamama, says his father has not recognised he is ill and refuses to do exercises to slow its advance.
He revealed his father asks about his mother forgetting she died in January.
Sharif, whose performance in Lawrence of Arabia earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, admitted in an interview in July 2013 he tended to forget a lot of things but presented it as a positive thing because it meant he didn't dwell on the past or future and thought purely of the present.
But at the time a spokesperson for the the star dismissed claims he was struggling with Alzheimer's and dementia as "mere lies" and was just suffering from was extreme fatigue.
In one of his final films Sharif played an Alzheimer's sufferer in the 2009 French language film I Forgot To Tell You.
In preparing for the role, which charts the friendship between an elderly man and a young girl out of prison, he had gone into hospitals and interacted with patients who had the disease
He is currently spending most of his time in hotels in Eqypt and spends his time relaxing on his terrace after breakfast and listening to live music in the hotel bar at night time.
Sharif underwent triple bypass surgery in 1992, and suffered a mild heart attack in 1994. Until his bypass, he smoked 100 cigarettes a day.
Sharif, whose real name is Michel Demitri Chalhoub, took a degree in mathematics and physics at Cairo University and worked in his family's lumber business before turning to acting.
He converted to Islam in 1955 to marry Egyptian actress Faten Hamama, they had one child together before they divorced in 1974. He always maintained she was the love of his life and never remarried.
Aside from his acting career, he also has a reputation for being one of the world's best bridge players and had a regular column and wrote numerous books on the subject.
Sharif told the press in 2006 that he no longer played bridge, explaining, "I decided I didn't want to be a slave to any passion any more except for my work. I had too many passions, bridge, horses, gambling. I want to live a different kind of life, be with my family more because I didn't give them enough time."
He is also a Hull City fan and was awarded an honorary degree by the University of Hull in 2010.