Zeki Alasya

Zeki Alasya — Biography

Born in the Şehzadebaşı district of Istanbul in 1943, Zeki Alasya grew into a Turkish stage and screen actor, director and screenwriter with a career spanning more than five decades. A nephew of the Ottoman grand vizier Kıbrıslı Kâmil Pasha, he studied at Robert College and made his amateur stage debut in 1959 with a student theatre troupe, later co-founding the Devekuşu cabaret theatre alongside Ahmet Gülhan and Metin Akpınar. He entered cinema in 1972 and, over the following decade, became one of the defining faces of Turkish screen comedy as one half of the popular Zeki-Metin pairing with Akpınar, with films such as Mavi Boncuk and Hasip ile Nasip among the era standouts. After 1980 he leaned more toward theatre work, though from 2008 he returned to wide popularity through his role in the television series Akasya Durağı. Holder of Turkey’s State Artist title and the Golden Orange Lifetime Achievement Award, he died at age 72 following a liver ailment.