Hulusi Kentmen

Hulusi Kentmen — Biography

Hulusi Kentmen was born on 20 January 1911 in Tarnovo, Bulgaria, the son of Ali Bey, an official of the Ottoman postal service; his family migrated to Turkey after the Balkan Wars and he spent his childhood on the Gulf of İzmit. While training at the Naval NCO School and later serving as a submarine petty officer, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1933 and, facing discharge, wrote to Atatürk, whose personal physician examined him and certified him fit. In 1937 he was pulled onto a stage at a Kadıköy Halkevi rehearsal when the cast was short an actor, playing Tahir in Hisse-i Şaiya; his talent was spotted by Burhanettin Tepsi, with whom he turned professional at the French Theatre. He kept up both his naval career and acting, with his superiors' tolerance, until leaving the service in 1961. He entered cinema in 1942 with Sürtük and became known through Ferdi Tayfur's Senede Bir Gün (1946); his warm, gruff fatherly type became so familiar that "like Hulusi Kentmen" entered everyday speech. He married Refika Kentmen in 1938, and they had a son, Volkan. He died of heart and kidney failure at Marmara University Hospital on 20 December 1993 and was buried at Karacaahmet Cemetery; Google marked his memory with a dedicated doodle in 2022.