Hikmet Karagöz

Hikmet Karagöz — Biography

Hikmet Karagöz was born on 31 December 1946 in Vezirköprü, Samsun; he began in amateur theatre at the Eminönü Halkevi in 1962-63 and turned professional in 1964 at the Küçük Sahne Ulvi Uraz theatre, resigning from the İstanbul Municipal City Theatres in 1980. He moved into television in 1974 with Yaşar ne Yaşar ne Yaşamaz and into film in 1982 with Faize Hücum, and became a fixture of popular memory for the scene in En Büyük Şaban where he sells Kemal Sunal the Bosphorus Bridge. Joining Bizimkiler in 1990 as tea-seller Abbas brought him wide recognition, and over a career of more than thirty years he appeared in over a hundred productions, including Gönlümdeki Köşk Olmasa, Nokta, Veda and Bir Zamanlar Çukurova.

Alongside acting he painted mainly in watercolor from 1986 onward, holding seven solo exhibitions, and had earlier placed second in a 1979 anti-pollution cartoon competition. Following a stroke in August 2018, he died on 27 October 2020 in a hospital in Istanbul's Kartal district, where he had been under treatment, and was buried at Topkapı Yeni Kozlu Cemetery.