Gönül Yazar

Gönül Yazar — Biography

Born Mürşide Gönül Özyenginer on 12 August 1936 in İzmir, Gönül Yazar became known alongside her singer sister Belkıs Özener as one of the longest-active names in Turkish art music. She entered show business at fifteen by winning the Ege Ses Kraliçesi Yarışması singing contest in 1952, and through the audition she took that same year after marrying Necdet Yazar, whose surname she adopted for the stage, she became one of the favored voices of TRT Ankara Radio. She began lending her voice to film songs from 1958 and went on to appear in more than forty films herself, including Vurgun, Bitmeyen Şarkı and Bir Bahar Akşamı; she is also remembered by the nickname tied to Taş Bebek, in which she shared the lead with Göksel Arsoy. Her recording career, launched with a 78 rpm single in 1962, produced eighteen studio albums; she turned Marie Laforêt's Mon amour, mon ami into the Turkish Çapkın Kız in 1968 and earned a gold record for Yaşar Güvenir's composition "Sensiz Saadet Neymiş." She had a daughter, Yasemin, from her 1968 relationship with Erol Simavi, and has said she married and divorced six times over her career. She was later honored with the title of State Artist.