Aharon Ipalé
Aharon Ipalé is an actor, born 1941.
Born in Morocco, Israeli by nationality and American by adoption, Ipalé spent forty-five years being the actor a production called when the script needed authority with an accent. That is a category which has produced a great deal of thin work, and he did his share of it, but the sheer spread of places he turned up in is impressive.
He is in Fiddler on the Roof as Sheftel. He is Major David Grut in Raid on Entebbe. He is the photographer in Xanadu, the emir in Ishtar, General Jaffar in Son of the Pink Panther, Malek in Who Dares Wins, Sir Reuben Hergesheimer in The Shooting Party, a doctor in American Ninja 5, Alejandro De La Vivar in Vibes. British thrillers, American disaster pictures, war dramas, straight-to-video action: he worked in all of them, almost always in the second or third tier of the cast list, and he gave each one the same unhurried gravity.
The role that outlived the rest is Seti I in The Mummy (1999), which he reprised in The Mummy Returns. It is a small part, carried on bearing rather than dialogue, and it is the image most people have of him.
He kept working to the end. The Promise, released in 2016, the year he died, has him as Dr. Nazim.
Movies (14)
- The Mummy (1999)
- The Mummy Returns (2001)
- Fiddler on the Roof (1971)
- The Promise (2016)
- Xanadu (1980)
- Ishtar (1987)
- Raid on Entebbe (1976)
- Who Dares Wins (1982)
- Vibes (1988)
- American Ninja 5 (1993)
- Son of the Pink Panther (1993)
- The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (1980)
- Guardian Angel (1994)
- The Shooting Party (1985)
TV (2)
Where to start with Aharon Ipalé
The two to see are The Mummy and its sequel The Mummy Returns, which repeats the trick exactly. Neither gives him much to say and neither needs to; both use him as a figure of ancient authority the film can cut to and be believed.
The better films are elsewhere. Fiddler on the Roof will outlast everything else on this list even though his part in it is small, and Raid on Entebbe is the sober one, a taut dramatisation with him as an army major.
After that you are into the enjoyable rubbish, which he was very good at: Xanadu, Ishtar and Who Dares Wins between them cover roughly every sort of film the 1980s made badly, and he is a photographer, an emir and a man named Malek across the three of them. Finish on The Promise, one of his last.