Lale Oraloğlu

Lale Oraloğlu — Biography

Emine Lale Oraloğlu was born on 15 August 1924 in İzmir, daughter of the Tatar-born scientist and writer Lebib Karan (1887-1964). In her youth she rowed competitively at national level, worked in the 1950s as a newspaper columnist, and later published a novel. From 1960 she ran her own company, the Oraloğlu Theatre, for 43 years, touring Anatolia with its productions.

A governorship ban on her staging of "Kadınlar I-Ih Derse" led her to a hunger strike that got the play reopened; arrested on a smuggling charge while on tour in 1974, she staged a second hunger strike, and public pressure moved parliament to pass a law pardoning her. Across a long screen career she scripted seven films and, as one of the first Turkish women to direct, made five more herself. Her company Alev Film produced three pictures; her lead role in "Kırık Çanaklar" took it to the 11th Berlin Film Festival, and in 1963 she shared the screen with her actress daughter Alev in "Kötü Tohum." She was honored more than once for both acting and writing.