Filiz Akın

Filiz Akın — Biography

Filiz Akın, born Suna Akın in Ankara on 2 January 1943 and died in Istanbul on 21 March 2025, was a Turkish film actress, author and television presenter, the blonde star of the Yeşilçam years. With Fatma Girik, Hülya Koçyiğit and Türkan Şoray she is counted among the four leading actresses of the era, and was known as the noble, modern, urban and elegant face of Turkish cinema.

She was studying archaeology in Ankara when film intervened: she won a magazine competition in 1962 and, pressed by the director Memduh Ün, filmed Akasyalar Açarken the same year. Thirteen busy years followed, taking in Gurbet Kuşları, Umutsuzlar, Ayrılık, Acı Hayat and Karateci Kız; her Hilda in Ankara Ekspresi brought her sole Golden Orange for best actress in 1971. She married the producer-director Türker İnanoğlu in 1964, had a son, İlker, in 1965, divorced in 1974 and left the screen in 1975 with Babaların Babası.

She sang on stage for several years, settled in Paris in 1982, and in 1994 married Sönmez Köksal, living in France while he served as Turkey's ambassador there. She wrote books, contributed a newspaper column, hosted interview programmes and campaigned on cancer awareness after her own recovery. She faced a camera for the last time in 2011, and was 82 when she died.