Gila Almagor, the grande dame of Israeli cinema, is a film, theatre, and television actress; an author, screenwriter, playwright, and the 2004 recipient of the Israel Prize in the category of Film. Almgor started out in theatre at the age of 17 when she joined the Habima Theatre company and was cast in Thornton Wilder’s, The Skin of Our Teeth. Since then, throughout the course of her long career, Almagor has appeared on virtually every theatre stage in the country. Highlights of her stage credits include: The Idiot (HaOhel Theatre, 1963), Peter Pan (Haifa Theatre, 1965), After the Fall (The Cameri Theatre, 1965), The Bride and The Butterfly Hunter (Bimot Theatre, 1967), and The Seagull (The Cameri Theatre, 1974). In 1995, Almagor reunited with Habima Theatre and has since been attached to it. Highlights of her Habima credits include: Ghosts (1995), Kaddish (aka Kaddish for Naomi Ginsberg, 2000), The House of Bernarda Alba (2001), and The Visit (aka The Old Lady Comes to Call, 2001).
In 1960, Almagor landed her debut film role in Raphael Nussbaum’s Blazing Sand. Then, in 1969 she came up with, and subsequently pitched the idea for what would become the film Siege, in which she also played the lead. The film, directed by Gilberto Tofano earned a Palme d’Or nomination at the Cannes Film Festival, and is considered one of Israeli cinema’s greatest masterpieces to this day.
In 1986, Almgor published The Summer of Aviya – an autobiographical novel which she later adapted into a screenplay she herself wrote. The film adaptation, produced by Almagor and directed by Eli Cohen came out in 1988, with Almagor playing the lead. The Summer of Aviya was an instant hit. It was shown at countless festivals around the world, taking home multiple awards including The Silver Berlin Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 1994, Almagor wrote and produced the sequel, Under the Domon Tree: yet another adaptation of a novel she had published. The film enjoyed similar success as its predecessor and was featured at a host of international festivals including the Cannes Film Festival where it was shown as part of the Un Certain Regard section. In Israel, the film won the Wolgin Prize for Best Film at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
Highlights of her other film credits include El Dorado (Menahem Golan, 1963), What a Gang (Zeev Havatzelet, 1963), Sallah (Ephraim Kishon, 1964), Trunk to Cairo (Menahem Golan, 1965), Motive to Murder (Peter Freistadt, 1966), The Highway Queen (Menahem Golan, 1971), The House on Chelouche Street (Moshé Mizrahi, 1973), Save the Lifeguard (Uri Zohar, 1977), Operation Thunderbolt (Menhem Golan, 1978), My Mother the General (Joel Silberg, 1979), Hide and Seek (Dan Wolman, 1980), Dead End Street (Yaky Yosha, 1982), Life According to Agfa (Assi Dayan, 1992), Sh’Chur (‘hex’) (Shmuel Hasfari, 1994), Leylasede (aka Passover Fever, Shemi Zarhin, 1995), Dangerous Acts (Shemi Zarhin, 1998), Munich (Steven Spielberg, 2005), The Debt (Assaf Bernstein, 2007), The Human Resources Manager (Eran Riklis, 2010), Fire Birds (Amir Wolf, 2015), and Antenna (Arik Rothstein, 2016).
Her performance as ‘Margot’ in Menahem Golan’s 1966 film, Fortuna, won Almagor an Israel Film Center award in the Best Actress category. Her part in Michal Bat-Adam’s A Thin Line (1980) won her a Kinor David Award (‘David’s violin’), and another Israel Film Center award. Almagor’s role in Dina Zvi-Riklis’s Three Mothers (2006) earned her a Special Prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival.
Her long list of television credits include The Bride and the Butterfly Hunter (Ram Loevy, 1974), a TV movie based on the same stage play she had done years earlier, and a host of other memorable series roles on In Therapy, Our Song, and The First Family.
Almagor is married to theatre producer, Yaakov Agmon.
