Eli Yatzpan

Eliyahu Yatzpan
Born	(1965-06-06)6 June 1965 Tel-Aviv, Israel
Occupation(s)	Late night talk show host (Yatzpan), comedian

Eliyahu Yatzpan (born June 6, 1965) is an Israeli television host and comidian, best known as the host of the Channel 3 late-night talk show/variety show Yatzpan between 2001 and 2006.

Biography

Early life

Eliyahu Yatzpan was born in Tel-Aviv, Israel. He is the fifth of eight children in an Iraqi-Jewish family. His father, Huji, was a tailor and his mother, Ungel, was a nanny.

While attending the vocational school, Sir Ellis Kadoorie Agricultural School, he became known for his impressions and high jinks especially for coming into school dressed as Antiochus on random occasions. His schoolmates nicknamed him, "juha". After graduating, he was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces first into a course for quartermasters because they didn't believe him when he said that he could sing. Luckily for him he was moved to the "mafhash" (Hebrew: מפח"ש) entertainment troop (along with later to be Israeli celebrities such as Hanan Goldblatt, and Orna Datz, then known as Orna Cohen).

After discharge, he joined a Jewish performance tour of the United States. When he arrived back he joined an acting group and auditioned for various acting roles at Tel-Aviv's famous Habima theatre.

Television career

His first television appearance was in the Israeli children's science fiction mini-series "Hatsatskanim" (1987-1988) which was broadcasted on the Israeli educational channel. he played the role of the alien "Shemesh", the technician of the rocketship.

In 1988, Yatzpan landed a role in the movie, "Fictional Marriage" (Hebrew: נישואים פיקטיביים), where he played Bashir, an Arab waiter. Random gigs from television to radio helped earn Yatzpan a little bit of name recognition but when he joined Yigal Shilon's hidden camera show, "Fisfusim" (Hebrew: פיספוסים) on Reshet Channel 2 (Israel) he exploded on screen playing many different characters and gained celebrity status in Israel.

After the failure of Tzvika Hadar's evening variety show on Keshet, Eli Yatzpan moved right in and cemented his spot in Israeli television history. His hijinks and comedy along with impressive interview techniques helped land him his own nightly show on Channel 3 (Israel) in 2001, which lasted until 2006.

Partial filmography

• Ficticious Marriage (1988)
• Ehad miShelanu (One of Us) (1989)
• Max v'Morris (Max and Morris) (1994)
• Chain of Command (movie) (2004)

Family Life

Yatzpan met his wife Galit when she was in the kindergarten of Ruth Suissa, the wife of the actor Meir Suissa. At their wedding Shimon Peres was their guest of honor. Yatzpan has three children, Ido, Noa and Neta. Yatzpan lives in Ramat Hasharon.