Assi Dayan
Company:
Art
Asaf (Assi) Dayan was the youngest son of Israeli general and defense mi-
nister Moshe Dayan and peace activist Ruth Dayan (née Schwartz). In 1967, Dayan
established himself as a film actor and Israeli icon in He Walked Through the Fields,
Yossi Milo's adaptation of Moshe Shamir's novel and play by that name. That year,
he appeared in Micha Shagrir's Scouting Patrol, about elite fighters on a mission to capture the commander of a fedayeen squad. In 1969 Dayan co-starred in the
American movie A Walk with Love and Death, set in medieval France and directed by John Huston, in which he plays alongside Huston's daughter, Angelica. He portrayed Giora Geter, owner of a Tel Aviv pub whose life falls apart, in Eitan Green's Into the Night. In 1984, Dayan had a supporting role as a prisoner in Uri Barbash's Beyond the Walls, described as an important milestone in Israeli political cinema. Other acting credits include Operation Thunderbolt, about the Israeli raid in Entebbe, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Dayan is the deputy of Yoni Netanyahu, played by Yehoram Gaon. Dayan played the leading role of psychologist Reuven Dagan in the TV drama series BeTipul, which ran for two seasons on Israeli TV (2005 and 2008). The series was later adapted for the US market by HBO under the name In Treatment with Gabriel Byrne in the lead role. By 2008 Dayan had acted in some 50 films and TV series episodes.