Uri Gavriel

Uri Gavriel (born April 3, 1955) is an Israeli theater, film and TV actor. Winner of the Ophir Award and Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 2005 as Best Actor in film "What a Wonderful Place". --- Uri Gavriel was born in 1955 in the Magdiel transit camp in Israel to the Iraqi Jewish immigrants Bertha and Gabriel Gavriel. When he was five, the family moved to Jaffa. When Gavriel was 12-years-old the family moved to the neighborhood of Tel Giborim and from it to the secular Pardes Katz within the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak. After serving his mandatory military service, Gavriel continued to work as an actor. Between the years 1977 - 1979 he studied acting and theater in Nissan Nativ's acting studio. In 1974 he played a cameo role in one of the episodes of the children's show Ha'Yladim Mi'Shchunat Chaim, in which he played a thief. In 1984 he played in a guest role in the TV series Close Relatives in which he portrayed a cop. In 1982 Gavriel starred in the film Mitahat La'af in which he played the hardcore Mizrahi criminal Sami Ben Tovim, alongside Moshe Ivgy. For his role in the film Gavriel won the Player of the Year award in Haifa's Film Festival. In the same year Gavriel played in the film Dead End Street' in which he played alongside Hanna Maron and Tiki Dayan. --- In 1983 Gavriel participated in the French-Israeli production Hanna K.. The film has been nominated for a César award. In 1986 Gavriel moved to the United States and participated in several American-Israeli productions: Sidney J. Fury's Iron Eagle and Menahem Golan's The Delta Force in which Gavriel played alongside Chuck Norris, and in the TV movie Steal the Sky in which he played alongside Sasson Gabai Etty Ankri, Gabi Amrani, and Yaakov Banai.