Eli Yatzpan

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

Eliyahu Yatzpan (born June 6, 1965) is an Israeli television presenter best known as host of Channel 3's late-night talk show/variety show Yatzpan.

1 Biography

[edit] Biography

[edit] 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 Kadouri 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.

[edit] Television career

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.

Eli Yatzpan portraying Amir Peretz on Yatzpan.

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.