Yeşim Salkım

Yeşim Salkım — Biography

Yeşim Salkım, whose father is the musician Dursun Salkım, came into the world in Istanbul on 12 April 1968 and was raised in the Kavaklıdere quarter of Ankara; her father's family is of Albanian origin. After a French kindergarten she went on to Saint Benoît French High School, then completed higher studies in the classical Turkish art music program of the ITU State Conservatory. Her 1994 debut album, Hiç Keyfim Yok, carried the tracks Ben Yoldan Gönüllü Çıktım and Son Sigara that quickly made her name, and in 1997 she launched the label Yeşil Müzik, through which artists such as Hilal Cebeci and Cenk Eren reached the market. She played Emel in the 1996 film Eşkıya to break into cinema, and five years later her Sevda Erses in Şarkıcı brought her the Golden Orange's actress prize as well as a top female pop star title from the Magazine Journalists' Association that same year. Her screen work spans Kocamın Ailesi, Huzur Sokağı, Sessiz Gemiler, Seher Vakti, Ateş Dansı and Fosforlu Cevriye, while on stage she starred in the musicals Casablanca and Bizim Şarkımız. Married five times, she had her first daughter, Gizem, with husband Mustafa İmre in 1990 and a second, Ada, with her last husband, Hakan Eratik, in 2011; her father, Dursun Salkım, died of the coronavirus in 2021. More recently she has taken parts in the series Arıza, İstanbullu Gelin and Evlat Kokusu and in the films Türkler Çıldırmış Olmalı 2: Mavi Vatan and Serçenin Gözyaşı, returning to cinemas in 2026 with Mitoloji Mafyası.