Sıtkı Akçatepe

Sıtkı Akçatepe — Biography

Sıtkı Akçatepe was born in Istanbul in 1902, descended on his mother's side from Nevşehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha, grand vizier of the Tulip Era, and Fatma Sultan, daughter of Ahmed III. When his family objected to his childhood ambition to become an actor, he ran away from home to pursue it, and he later fought as a veteran of the Great Offensive that began on 26 August 1922. He built a long stage career at the Istanbul City Theatres, continuing until retirement, and entered cinema with a minor role in Bir Millet Uyanıyor (1932), one of the first Turkish sound films, alongside Atıf Kaptan; over the following decades he appeared in close to a hundred films, typically as a fatherly shopkeeper, judge or teacher figure. He became widely beloved for playing Paşa Nuri, the teacher and War of Independence veteran who movingly sang the folk song "Çanakkale içinde vurdular beni," in the 1975 film Hababam Sınıfı and its sequels, sharing the screen there with his own son Halit Akçatepe as the student Güdük Necmi. In Arzu Film productions such as Tosun Paşa (1976) and Bizim Aile (1975) he again played father to characters portrayed by his son, and he appeared in some films alongside his wife, actress Leman Akçatepe. Akçatepe died in Istanbul on 21 October 1986 at the age of 84 and was buried in the family plot at Karacaahmet Cemetery.