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Bülent Kayabaş

Bülent Kayabaş

Actor · died at 71

Profile

Age at death71
Birth dateJune 18, 1945
BirthplaceEskişehir
DiedApril 19, 2017
Place of deathIstanbul, Turkey
ProfessionActor
Zodiac signGemini

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Bülent Kayabaş — Biography

Bülent Kayabaş was a versatile character actor of Yeşilçam, and today he is remembered above all as the villain Ferruh Durak in Karateci Kız (1973) and its drawn-out death scene. Rediscovered online in 2012, the scene drew millions of views, was dubbed the "worst movie death scene ever" and was parodied in an episode of Regular Show. Yet he was an artist who worked for more than four decades on stage and screen and also did voice work.

He turned professional in 1961 at the Eskişehir Municipal Theatre, appeared with many private companies between 1961 and 2000, and won the Avni Dilligil best actor award in 1981. He entered cinema in 1963 and appeared in well over a hundred films and nearly two hundred productions in all. His filmography also includes Karateciler İstanbul'da (1974), Şeytan Köşeyi Döndü (1979) and Futboliye (1983). In the 2000s he appeared in Filler ve Çimen and Pardon and lent his voice to Turkish versions of animated films such as Winnie the Pooh and Atlantis.

In his later years he played Sabri Fırıldak in the Fırıldak Ailesi productions. He died of colorectal cancer on 19 April 2017 in Istanbul, in the hospital where he was being treated.

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Bülent Kayabaş

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Their work through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

The distance between Ferruh Durak in Karateci Kız and the minister in Filler ve Çimen shows Bülent Kayabaş's range: one an outsized villain remembered for a single scene, the other an institutional face in a political drama. His Harman Sahibi in Erden Kıral's Bereketli Topraklar Üzerinde places him inside auteur cinema too. In my view this career is wider than the shadow of one scene.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Amir in Pardon, Businessman in Fasulye, Minister in Filler ve Çimen: Bülent Kayabaş's later roles are mostly men of rank and money. Added together, they give a layer of power that the films either laugh off or criticise. In my view that is also a mould: the actor is called in as the face that carries authority, and the part often goes no further than the office.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes on this person's screen work, written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader comments are below.

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