‘Snowfall’ and ‘Madam Secretary’ Actor Alon Aboutboul Dead at 60

Israeli actor Alon Aboutboul has died. He was 60.

The actor’s cause of death is unknown after he died on a beach in Tel Aviv, Israel this morning. He received CPR from lifeguards before paramedics were called, and those medical professionals attempted to resuscitate him for an hour before pronouncing him dead.

A beachgoer told Metro that it “happened in an instant. He went into the water, and everything seemed perfectly fine. After a few minutes, he suddenly came out of the water, approached people, and said he wasn’t feeling well, and then they called for help.”

“Everyone was really scared, he came out of the water and collapsed on the beach,” the bystander said. “Everyone wanted to help, and they recognised who it was when he came out of the water. This is a terrible tragedy here this morning; everyone here is in a big shock.”

Abutbul’s first American role was in the 2001 film The Order alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme and Charlton Heston. Over the next decade, he appeared in Steven Spielberg’s Munich and Ridley Scott’s Leonardo DiCaprio-starring thriller Body of Lies.

In 2012, he became an Internet meme for his role in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises as Dr. Leonid Pavel, a nuclear physicist kidnapped in the introductory scene. 2016 saw him star in London Has Fallen and he guest starred on Madam Secretary in 2019, but his most famous role was in FX’s wildly popular crime drama Snowfall, where he appeared as drug lord Avi Drexler in five of the show’s six seasons. He also appeared in two episodes of FBI: International.

He is survived by his wife, Shir Bilia, and his four children.