Son of the Desert

Near dawn, I was sitting in the lobby of an old Casablanca hotel with my bags, waiting for my boyfriend Lee to finish making sure we had left nothing behind. We were catching the morning train to Tangier.

Outside in the street, the cafes were opening and beginning to dispense the sweet mint tea and staggering strong coffee of the day. I could hear metal gates rolling open, clinking glass. But my eyes were glued to the lobby's miniscule TV set, which was playing Arab pop music videos. First, there was a music video of a man in desert robes singing into the distance. Then there was a woman in bangles and long curling hair and lots of eye contact.

Suddenly, an unseen hand had changed the channel, and in black-and-white, a mild-mannered man in glasses was talking back and forth with a bunch of people. At first, I thought it was Marcello Mastroianni, but then I realized it was Omar Sharif.

Obviously, Sharif was a star of the Arab cinema prior to becoming world-famous for Lawrence of Arabia. But unlike that film, where he was launched as an exotic sex symbol from another culture, here Sharif was playing an everyday - albeit very debonair - character from his own culture. (It was the difference between Antonio Banderas from Desperado and his roles in Almodovar movies.) I wanted to see more, but I had to catch a train.

That was more than 15 years ago. Fast forward to 2004: we were now in Madrid, on the trail of Ava Gardner for Lee's biography, Ava Gardner: Love Is Nothing. We roamed the neighborhood where she had an apartment, and the exurbs, where she had a home with a pool. We stayed at the Hotel Wellington, famous hangout for the bullfighters she loved. (There was even a bullfighting reporters convention while we were there.)

One evening, as we happened to stroll through the avenidas and calles next to Retiro Park, we came upon a store: "The Sharif Shirt Company." It was indeed a clothing store, with all shirts made of 100 percent Egyptian cotton. And it was endorsed by Omar Sharif, who had attended its debut in 2002.

Strangely enough, we had been talking about going to Paris to visit Sharif. Sharif had appeared in Mayerling with Gardner, and an assistant to Sharif said the actor would be happy to talk but the interview must take place in person, in Paris, as he did not do interviews over the phone.

The timing for that meeting never worked out, which may have been just as well. (This was during the then septuagenarian actor's "scrappy" phase from 2003 to 2005, when he was head-butting police and punching parking valets.)

Meanwhile, I think the movie I was watching was Hubbi el wahid (1962). Hard to tell, after these years. If you know, please tell me what it's about.