Gioele Dix

Io sono un automobilista, ed essendo un automobilista sono sempre costantemente incazzato come un bestia!! (I’m a car driver, and being a car driver, I’m always totally furiously irrevocably pissed off!)

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.

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 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 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.

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!").

Gioele Dix, a pseudonym of his name David Ottolenghi (born January 3, 1956) is an Italian actor and comedian of Jewish descent.