Ahmet Fehim

Ahmet Fehim — Biography

Ahmet Fehim was sent as a boy to the naval arsenal, then took work as a lathe operator at the idare-i mahsusa factory before rising to foreman in the industrial school's workshop; he would often slip off to watch plays at Gedikpaşa. He took to that same stage himself in 1876, playing the servant Bonafis. In 1879 he travelled to Bursa and appeared in a Molière adaptation staged by Ahmet Vefik Pasha, then toured Anatolia alongside Fasulyeciyan. Back in Istanbul he joined Mınakyan's Ottoman Drama Company and later taught comedy classes at Darülbedayi. After the First World War he turned to cinema, making films for the Society of Disabled Veterans; he wrote, directed and starred in Mürebbiye (1919), directed Binnaz that same year, and acted in Himmet Ağa'nın İzdivacı. He eventually published a memoir of his years on stage. Sources place his birth in either 1856 or 1857; he died in Istanbul on 2 August 1930, and his son was Münif Fehim Özarman.