Aydemir Akbaş

Aydemir Akbaş — Biography

Aydemir Akbaş became known first as a journalist and sports columnist after graduating from Galatasaray High School, then built a long career on stage and screen as an actor, screenwriter and director. Born in Feriköy, Istanbul, to an Albanian father and a mother from Sürmene, he entered theatre under Altan Erbulak's guidance, working alongside Gülriz Sururi, Nisa Serezli and Ali Poyrazoğlu and directing a number of plays himself.

He moved into film in 1964 with Atıf Yılmaz's Keşanlı Ali Destanı and appeared in several Yılmaz Güney productions. He became widely recognised for the erotic comedies that helped keep Yeşilçam's cinemas running in the late 1970s, but never abandoned drama and comedy; later he took the sidekick role in İbrahim Tatlıses's films and contributed to their scripts. He acted in more than a hundred films, directed eight of them, wrote dozens of screenplays and appeared in close to thirty stage plays.

In the 2000s he appeared in films such as Avrupalı and The Shadowless, but is remembered above all as Sabri in the Kolpaçino comedies opposite Şafak Sezer. He married the actress Beyhan Benek in 1964, a relationship that survived two divorces across three marriages. He died in Istanbul in August 2024, aged 88, after being hospitalised at home; sources give the date as either the 16th or the 17th. Benek herself died two years later, in July 2026.