DUDU TOPAZ, who not long ago was considered Israel’s top TV star, admitted yesterday to masterminding violent attacks against key television executives who refused him a new show.
Topaz (61) was arrested on Sunday after an intensive police investigation into the beatings of two senior TV executives and an agent who rejected the fallen star’s proposals for a small-screen comeback.
The affair dominated news in Israel this week, with the top-selling daily Yediot Aharonotdevoting its first 15 pages to every aspect of the story the day following his arrest.
Topaz used his good looks and charisma to dominate chat and game shows in the 1990s, the first decade of Israeli commercial television.
His popularity earned him the title “king of the ratings”.
In recent years, however, new reality TV shows, based on successful American models, dominated prime time, leaving Topaz out of the picture.
His plans for a comeback were spurned and his revenge was brutal.
A Tel Aviv court on Monday extended Topaz’s remand in custody by eight days, with the judge noting that the evidence clearly showed that “Topaz was the head of the pyramid and the one who initiated and planned the attacks”.
Topaz initially rejected the allegations but broke down during questioning yesterday and confessed. He will be formally charged in coming days.
The police suspect that Topaz paid his neighbour large sums of money to hire security guards to carry out the attacks.
Police also have evidence that the fallen star was planning a fourth attack on a newspaper editor who refused his request to write a column.
Topaz is no stranger to controversy. Addressing a Labor Party election rally in 1981, he referred to supporters of the right-wing Likud party as “riff-raff”. His comments were used by Likud Party leader Menahem Begin, who went on to win the election, to portray the Likud as the party of the underprivileged.
Two sexual harassment cases against Topaz were closed for lack of evidence after he allegedly kissed a female security guard against her will and then tried to demonstrate the act on a woman reporter. He also beat up a TV critic after a scathing review.
Three months ago Topaz admitted to army radio “there is also a bad person lurking inside me – a vindictive and unforgiving person whom I am trying to suppress”.