Jerry Haleva

Jerry Haleva (born 1945 or 1946 (age 77–78)) 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 then-Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein among his co-workers 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 Hussein's doppelgänger.[10] In January 2004 he came back to this decision and said in an interview that he was interested in continuing his acting career.[11]

As of 2016, he was a contract lobbyist (Sergeant Major Associates) and lived in Sacramento, California.[12]