Aytekin Akkaya

Aytekin Akkaya — Biography

Aytekin Akkaya is a Turkish actor, screenwriter and director born in Erzurum; his birth year is given as either 1943 or 1945 depending on the source. He entered cinema in 1964, when the lead actor of a film shot in Erzurum walked off the set in a dispute with the production company and a director spotted him instead, casting him in two films in quick succession. He then moved to Istanbul to pursue acting further and won a role as an extra in British director Peter Collinson's Paralı Askerler, shot largely in Turkey; over some months of filming from Ürgüp to Istanbul he played one of the henchmen opposite Charles Bronson and Tony Curtis. That same year he appeared in Malkoçoğlu Cem Sultan, but he found his defining role alongside Cüneyt Arkın as Ali in the cult favorite Dünyayı Kurtaran Adam. In 1983, after appearing in the Italian production Yor and another foreign film, director Anthony M. Dawson offered him a Hollywood role on condition that he learn English; he was unable to take up the offer because he never mastered the language well enough. Beyond acting, Akkaya also worked as a screenwriter and director, appearing in more than sixty productions across a career of over four decades that also includes 3 Dev Adam, Kanca and Son Kahramanlar.