Macide Tanır

Macide Tanır — Biography

The daughter of veterinary officer İbrahim Birmeç, she was born in 1922 (Turkish Wikipedia gives 1920); raised in Pendik, she went from Erenköy Girls' High School to the Ankara State Conservatory at her father's encouragement, starting in the singing department before switching to theatre a year later. She joined the State Theatres in 1943, made her stage debut in an adaptation of Molière's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and appeared in more than sixty productions through 1985, including works by Sophocles, Ibsen, Shakespeare's Othello, the Dostoevsky-Camus adaptation The Possessed, Lorca's Blood Wedding and Oscar Wilde's Lady Windermere's Fan; after retiring from the State Theatres she spent two more years at Tiyatrokare. Once she left the stage she moved into film and television with Yer Demir Gök Bakır, Yengeç Sepeti and Cumhuriyet, and the series Baharın Bittiği Yer and Şehnaz Tango, while also dubbing numerous films into Turkish, including roles played by Ingrid Bergman and Rita Hayworth. After many earlier honors she was named a State Artist in 1991 and published her memoir Tiyatronun Cadısı in 2000. She died of respiratory failure in intensive care in Istanbul on 6 February 2013 and was buried in Emirgan Cemetery.