OFIR, SHAIKE

OFIR, SHAIKE (Yeshayahu; 1929–1987), Israeli actor, comedian, and pantomimist. Ofir was born in Jerusalem as Yeshayahu Goldstein. At the age of 14 he joined the Palmaḥ , but left to join the Ohel theater. In the War of Independence he rejoined the Palmaḥ. During his service, the Chizbatron, the Palmaḥ's entertainment troupe was created and Ofir joined it. After his service, he went to Paris to study pantomime under Atiene Decrot, the father of modern pantomime. After three years of study and half a year of performing with marcel marceau , he returned to Israel and joined the Cameri Theater. While there, he founded a Cameri pantomime group. In 1956 he went to the United States, working there for four and half years and performing with Marlene Dietrich. In the beginning of the 1960s he returned to Israel. He wrote and directed the first two shows of ha-gashash ha-Ḥiver and was recognized as an established actor, both in theater and film. Of his 28 films, the best known is the award-winning The Policeman Azulai (1971), written and directed by ephraim kishon , where he plays a blundering policeman so inept that criminals try to boost his arrest record so that he will remain on the beat. Other Kishon films include Ervinka (1967), The Blaumlich Canal (1970), and The Fox in the Chicken Coop (1978), and Ofir also starred in Hole in the Moon (1965) and Abual Benat (1973). His movie career garnered him three Kinor David prizes. He also put on one-man shows such as A Thousand Faces and The Joy of the Poor, portraying an entire gallery of Israeli types, none more hilarious than the fiery histadrut orator eating a sandwich as he delivers a speech. Ofir was called "the king of Israeli entertainment." In 2004, the Israeli film academy named its equivalent of the Oscar the Ofir in his honor (Shaked Gilboa (2nd ed.)