Known as the “King of the Ratings”, Dudu Topaz brought Israeli television into the modern era, his brash, vulgar charm and feel for commercial, populist television making him the country’s most recognisable personality. But he was unable to cope when his career waned, arranging violent attacks on those he held responsible and subsequently taking his own life.

Born David Goldenberg in Haifa in 1946, Topaz changed his name in order to sound less formal and more glamorous. He built his reputation in the 1970s, initially as a stand-up comic, and the merciless way in which he mocked aspects of Israeli society and culture was in perfect step with a society now confident enough to laugh at itself.

It was in this context that Topaz was appointed Labour Party spokesman in 1981, the first time that he attracted real controversy. At a party conference in Tel Aviv, he shared his pleasure at the absence of “chahchahim” — a derogatory term meaning riffraff, used to describe Jews of Middle Eastern origin. Typically, he turned the resultant uproar to his advantage, calling his next show A Slip of the Tongue and enjoying significant success.

It was not, though, until the cable TV boom of the 1990s that Topaz really came into his own. Presenting a show called Reshut HaDibbur, which translates as “permission to speak” — the same name used by Israel’s broadcasting authority — he became the country’s unofficial spokesman, his everyman image endearing him to the public. His unsophisticated style was mocked by the intelligentsia, but to many others he was a hero. Such was his influence that during one broadcast he asked viewers to turn off their lights, and the whole country went dark. On another occasion, he claimed to viewers that he would present aliens live on air, drawing a record-breaking audience comprising 51 per cent of the country’s homes.

He was granted a good deal of slack, so many of his indiscretions were overlooked. In 1995, he broke the glasses of a television critic following an adverse review, and two years later was the subject of newspaper allegations that, as a gameshow host, he had helped to rig the competition.

However, public sympathy for his antics began to evaporate in the early part of this decade. Hosting a show in the immediate aftermath of a deadly suicide bomb attack, he pressurised one of the wounded into agreeing that sufficient time had passed since the blast for him to begin his lighthearted routine. In a country now struggling with the realities of the second intifada, this was too much.

Then, in 2002, his reputation was damaged further when during a live show he inexplicably bit the arm of Natalia Oreiro, an Argentinian soap star. Despite a national outcry, he remained unapologetic: “The criticism comes from evil and stupidity, mostly jealousy . . . weep for the self-righteous feminist organisations. If there’s anything I regret, it’s not biting the other arm.”

A year later, he was charged with the sexual harassment of two young women, one a security guard at the studios where his show was filmed, the other an employee of the channel who claimed that Topaz put his tongue in her ear. He claimed the incidents were “innocent expressions of affection common in the entertainment industry” but although the cases collapsed because of a lack of evidence, the suspicion remained.

No one, though, was prepared for how dramatically Topaz’s star would fall. Usurped by younger presenters and the imported formats of reality television, Topaz still refused to alter his style despite plummeting ratings. When his show was finally axed in 2004, he quickly found work at a cable channel, but when that too was cancelled, he was distraught. Unable to cope with his decline, he began to pester industry insiders. Growing increasingly desperate, he took to leaving long, rambling messages for television honchos, detailing new shows and concepts that were ostensibly the same as everything he had done before.

In June of this year, he was arrested, after prominent executives of the companies responsible for Israel’s Channel 2 television station — Shira Margalit, vice-president of Reshet, and Avi Nir, director general of Keshet as well as talent agent Boaz Ben-Zion — were attacked by three different pairs of men, allegedly in Topaz’s pay. There is also evidence to suggest that Topaz had planned an attack on Amos Regev, editor of the freesheet Yisrael Hayom, for refusing him a column.

Initially, Topaz attempted to blame a variety of others for the violence, including the mafia and the supporters of football club Beitar Jerusalem, the most notorious in the country. However, he was no master criminal and once the police had uncovered the clues that he had left behind, he admitted that “they didn’t want me on television and I decided to take revenge.” Overindulged by the public to the extent that he felt impregnable, but equally culpable in having constructed his own mythology, even in confession Topaz showed the belligerence that both made him and broke him.

Placed on remand at the Abu Kabir detention centre in Tel Aviv, Topaz, a diabetic, was found unconscious in his cell soon after his arrest. Several syringes of insulin were found beside him, and it was reported that he had attempted suicide by lowering his blood sugar level. He survived and was subsequently moved to a high security cell in Ramla’s Nitzan Prison, for prisoners likely to pose a danger to themselves. His cell was supervised by two security cameras but for reasons of privacy there were none in the shower, and it was here that he was found hanged.

Topaz was married three times, and has three sons, all of whom survive him.

Dudu Topaz, actor and Israeli television personality, was born on September 20, 1946. He committed suicide on August 20, 2009, aged 62