Fatma Girik

Fatma Girik — Biography

Fatma Girik was born on 12 December 1942 in Istanbul's Sultanahmet neighbourhood to a diver, Hayri Girik, and his wife Münevver Ukav, one of their three children, and finished her schooling at Istanbul Girls' High School. Her first lead came in 1957 in Leke, directed by Seyfi Havaeri, but it was Memduh Ün's 1960 film Ölüm Peşimizde that drew real attention to her performance; the two met on that set and began a lifelong partnership.

She produced several of Kemal Sunal's films, including Bekçiler Kralı, Dokunmayın Şabanıma and Yüz Numaralı Adam, co-wrote the screenplay for Garip (1986) with Memduh Ün and Bülent Oran, and worked as art director on Gün Ortasında Karanlık (1990) and set designer on Postacı (1984). In 1964 she welcomed Kirk Douglas on his visit to Turkey, and in 1974 joined Cüneyt Arkın's trip to Cyprus to boost troop morale during the Cyprus Operation. She adopted a daughter, Ahu Karabacak, when the girl was twelve.

In 1995 she fell from a second floor while filming an unstunted suicide scene for a series, injuring her spine. In 1999 she withdrew her CHP candidacy for mayor of Şişli amid party sabotage. In her final years she had hip-replacement and brain surgery; she died on 24 January 2022 in an Istanbul hospital from COVID-19-related multi-organ failure, aged 79.