Cem Özer

Cem Özer — Biography

Cem Özer became one of Turkish private television's first star hosts with his sharp-tongued talk show Laf Lafı Açıyor, launched on Star TV in 1991, and is remembered for putting Tarkan and Cem Yılmaz on screen for the first time; on screen he reached a wide audience playing Mülayim in the 1981 film Hababam Sınıfı Güle Güle. Born on 5 October 1959 in Göksun, he is the son of an Armenian mother, Arşalus İçtilop, and a Circassian father, Nejat Özer, whose brother was the producer Nazmi Özer. He left law school at Istanbul University to join Dostlar Tiyatrosu, and began acting in 1976 with Yirmidört Saat, a film he wrote himself. He hosted programs on Kiss FM through the 1990s, released the album A'cemi Şarkılar in 1993, and published two books, Yastıkaltı Hikâyeleri and A! Cem'i Yazılar. Married five times, he has a daughter, Cemre, with Sebla Pekcan and a son, Osman Nejat, with Nurgül Yeşilçay, and summed up that record in 2024 by joking that his greatest achievement was getting divorced. Following films such as Berlin in Berlin, Karışık Pizza and Neredesin Firuze, his more recent credits include Payitaht Abdülhamid, Mendebur, Dayı: Bir Adamın Hikâyesi 2 and the 2026 series Muhabir.