al Qaeda's most wanted

Omar Sharif, for playing the role of St. Peter on Italian TV. This is, apparently, not the first time Sharif has raised the hackles of his co-religionists.

The actor, who was named Michael Chalhoub, was brought up a Christian. He converted to Islam in the 1950s after marrying the Egyptian film diva Faten Hamama. They divorced after two decades. Sharif shot to international stardom as Sherif Ali Ibn el-Kharish in David Lean's 1962 desert epic, Lawrence of Arabia. But he has repeatedly upset fans in the Muslim world. In 1968, with memories of the six-day war with Israel fresh in Arab minds, he caused a furore by kissing a Jewish woman, Barbra Streisand, in the movie Funny Girl. His films were banned in Egypt as a result.

In 2003 he stirred controversy playing a Muslim shopkeeper who befriends a Jewish teenager in the French film Monsieur Ibrahim et les Fleurs du Coran.