She also acted as 'The Detainer/007' in Casino Royale (1967). Lavi played European entertainer Ilona Bergen in the 1965 mystery film Ten Little Indians, a film adaptation of Agatha Christie's thriller about a group of strangers with deadly secrets who are lured to an isolated locale and murdered one by one. But audiences' tepid reaction to the film prompted Lavi to accept a new career path, frequently playing a scantily clad femme fatale. Her portrayal of The Girl, Peter O'Toole's love interest, in 1965's Lord Jim was to have been her breakout American role. She also appeared in Mario Bava's Gothic classic La Frusta e il corpo (1963), and the first Matt Helm film, The Silencers (1966), opposite Dean Martin. She appeared in Brunello Rondi's witch hunt-themed movie Il demonio (1963), a film she considered her best performance. Lavi was reunited with Douglas in her first American film, Vincente Minnelli's Two Weeks in Another Town (1962). Fluent in several languages, she acted in films in German, French, Italian, Spanish and English. Returning to Israel, her career took off in 1960 when she started appearing in a large number of European and American productions. In 1955 Lavi appeared in her first film, Hemsöborna, a Swedish adaptation of August Strindberg's 1887 novel The People of Hemsö.

She performed her national service as a goodwill ambassador and appeared in several more films until on a trip to Rome she was spotted on a beach and offered a role in Two Weeks in Another Town, reuniting her with Douglas. A cheesecake photo of Lavi adjusting her bikini after it broke while at a Rio de Janeiro swimming pool was widely circulated by Associated Press in 1959. Not suited to the climate, she would give up dancing and return to Israel to model. Douglas helped persuade her parents to send her to Stockholm, Sweden to study ballet. Īt age 10 she met Kirk Douglas, who was in Israel to film The Juggler, and told him she would like to be a dancer. Daliah Lavi (born Daliah Lewinbuk or Levenbuch, Hebrew: דליה לביא 12 October 1942 – ) was an Israeli actress, singer, and model.ĭaliah Lewinbuk (or Levenbuch) was born in Shavei Tzion, British Mandate of Palestine (now Israel), the daughter of Ruth and Reuben Lewinbuk (or Levenbuch), who were of German-Jewish and Russian-Jewish descent, respectively.

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