Dudu Topaz was an Israeli TV personality, comedian, actor, screenwriter, playwright, author and radio and television host.
15 Facts About Dudu Topaz
1.
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David Goldenberg, later Dudu Topaz, was born in Haifa, in then British Mandate of Palestine to Lilly and Eliyahu Goldenberg.
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Dudu Topaz's father was a radio announcer, actor and director.
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Dudu Topaz was a television host in the Israeli public TV Channel 1 in the eighties and early nineties, as well as running some successful sketch comedy shows on stage.
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In May 2009, Dudu Topaz was arrested on suspicion of ordering, organizing and paying for a series of attacks on top-level TV executives Avi Nir and Shira Margalit and showbiz agent Boaz Ben-Zion.
6.
Dudu Topaz was accused of planning attacks against television figures Zvika Hadar, Erez Tal, and Avri Gilad, Israel Hayom editor-in-chief Amos Regev, his ex-wife Roni Chen, and her husband Haim Zenati, as well as a second assault against Ben-Zion after judging that the first had not been severe enough.
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Dudu Topaz allegedly went on this revenge spree because his show was taken off the air, and because he was rejected by rival channels and newspapers for which he offered to write guest columns.
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On June 2,2009, it was reported that Dudu Topaz had confessed to having ordered the assaults.
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Dudu Topaz was later indicted for drug possession, due to allegations that for the previous three years, Dudu Topaz had purchased cocaine from Ofir Sasportas, one of the other suspects in the case.
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Dudu Topaz attempted suicide in his prison cell at the Abu Kabir Detention Center in Tel Aviv on July 3,2009, after taking an overdose of insulin, used to control his diabetes.
11.
Dudu Topaz apparently used the cord of an electric kettle to hang himself.
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Dudu Topaz was buried in the Yarkon Cemetery in a funeral that hundreds of people attended.
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In 2012, several men who Dudu Topaz hired to carry out the assaults were convicted or reached plea bargains.
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In 1988, Dudu Topaz had a brief affair with makeup artist Mati Halachmi, and they had a son named Daniel.
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In 1990, Dudu Topaz married Dalia Bar Sheshet a saleswoman from Bat Yam.