Omar Sharif a foreigner of some sort. He bridled at travel restrictions imposed by the government of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, leading to self-exile in Europe. He was a lifelong horse racing enthusiast, and at one time ranked among the world's top contract bridge players. Omar Sharif, whose adopted surname means "noble" or "nobleman", was born as Michel Dimitri Chalhoub in Alexandria, Egypt, to a Melkite Catholic family, either of Syrian or Lebanese descent: he belonged to a small ethnocultural minority known as the Levantine 'Antiochian' Greek Catholics of Egypt ("Rum Katuleek"), an offshoot of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch.
Claude Chalhoub Claude Chalhoub Claude Chalhoub () born in Qaa, Lebanon in 1974, from a Christian musical family of 11 children, attended the Lebanese Conservatoire before entering the Royal College of Music in London as winner of the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Scholarship award. He is fluent in Classical Western music and Arabic improvisation, and was concertmaster for Daniel Barenboim’s ‘West-Eastern Divan Orchestra’ (1999- 2002). Furthermore, he was invited by Yo-Yo Ma to Tanglewood/USA to support him in his Silk Road Project. His debut release on Teldec Classics International called Claude Chalhoub is the result of an exclusive recording contract with Canadian producer