Fatma Girik

Fatma Girik — Biography

Fatma Girik (12 December 1942 – 24 January 2022) was a Turkish film actress, producer, screenwriter and politician, widely seen as one of the defining stars of Turkish cinema's golden age. Alongside Türkan Şoray, Hülya Koçyiğit and Filiz Akın, she was celebrated as one of the "four-leaf clover" of the Yeşilçam era.

She began acting in the mid-1950s and appeared in roughly two hundred films, with the 1960s her most prolific period. She became identified with proud, strong-willed Anatolian women who refused to submit to injustice. A turning point in both her career and personal life came through director Memduh Ün, who remained her lifelong partner. She won the Golden Orange Best Actress Award several times, for films including Keşanlı Ali Destanı, Sürtüğün Kızı, Ezo Gelin, Boş Beşik and Acı, and also produced several films starring Kemal Sunal.

She entered politics in the late 1980s and served as the SHP mayor of Istanbul's Şişli district from 1989 to 1994. She returned briefly to the screen with television series in the 2000s. Girik died in Istanbul on 24 January 2022 at the age of 79 and, per her will, was buried in Bodrum beside Memduh Ün.