Gioele Dix
Gioele Dix, a pseudonym of his name David Ottolenghi (born 3 January 1956) is an Italian actor and comedian of Jewish descent. Life. Gioele Dix began his theatrical career at the end of the 1970s, promoting and animating the Milan stage company "Teatro degli Eguali". Among the numerous plays he took part in, are: "A Midsummer Night's Dream", a rock musical from Shakespeare directed by Gabriele Salvatores; "A Martian in Rome" by Ennio Flaiano and directed by Antonio Salines; two stagings of Molière’s, "Le Malade imaginaire" and "Tartuffe" with veteran actor Franco Parenti. Intending to pursue  a career as stand-up comedian, he appeared at the Derby Club and the Zelig, important historical Milan cabarets, reaching fame in 1988 in the TV variety show Cocco by RAI2 with the character of a permanently enraged car driver ("fucking raving mad!"). In the 1990s he confirms his popularity as a stage actor, as well as a playwright, in a number of works and on TV, but often also as a comedian sending up and imitating renowned soccer players in prime-time Sports shows. In the last few years, Dix had various movie engagements and filmed for the national  TV together with Giorgio Albertazzi in 2004. Among the many theatrical works, he interpreted "Cuori pazzi (Crazy Hearts)" by F.T Altan (2000), "Il libertino (The Libertine)" by E.E. Schmitt together with Ottavia Piccolo (2001) where he is the first Italian man playing naked, "Corto Maltese" from scripts by Hugo Pratt and music by Paolo Conte. Recently he returned to the stage with "Edipo.com", directed by famous Italian star Sergio Fantoni (2003); then "La Bibbia ha quasi sempre ragione (The Bible Is Almost Always Right)" with Cesare Picco at the piano (2004), all of them "pièces" enhancing the narrative dimension of  the story, thus exploiting Dix’s natural talent as a raconteur. In 2007 he was engaged in the cast of "Zelig" (a popular comedy TV show) as one of the comedians, interpreting his now famous caricature of the "permanently enraged car driver". In 2008 he staged "Tutta colpa di Garibaldi (It’s All Garibaldi’s Fault)" with scripts by Gioele Dix, Sergio Fantoni and Nicola Fano, directed by Sergio Fantoni; he followed with the play "Dixplay" by himself, with the participation of Bebo Best Baldan. Bibliography. Dix has also published some books on amusing themes: