Jerry Haleva

Jerry Haleva born May 26 1946 is an American actor and political lobbyist He gained fame as an actor as a doppelgänger of Saddam Hussein due to his physical resemblance to the late Iraqi leader with all of his film roles having him portraying Hussein Jerry Haleva a Sephardic Jew is a member of the Republican Party and has worked as a lobbyist for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee among others In 1973 he was an adviser to a legislative committee investigating prison conditions in California He served in the California Senate in 1977 as chief of staff for William Campbell In 1989 a colleague of Haleva distributed a photo of the thenIraqi leader Saddam Hussein among his coworkers with the text Now we know what Haleva does on his weekends A few years later Haleva contacted Ron Smith who represented doppelgängers in the film industry and Smith had a small role for Haleva in the feature film Hot Shots 1991 followed by a more prominent role in its sequel Hot Shots Part Deux 1993 Haleva played Hussein in half a dozen films Besides the Hot Shots movies and The Big Lebowski he appeared in a few other films and also appeared in commercials including for Nintendo In the spring of 2003 when Iraq was invaded he decided to stop working as Husseins doppelgänger In January 2004 he came back to this decision and said in an interview that he was interested in continuing his acting career As of 2016 he was a contract lobbyist Sergeant Major Associates and lived in Sacramento California