Fatma Girik

Fatma Girik — Biography

Fatma Girik (12 December 1942 - 24 January 2022) was a Turkish actress, producer, screenwriter and politician, born and died in Istanbul. Over a career of many decades she appeared in more than two hundred films and series, and she was counted alongside Türkan Şoray, Hülya Koçyiğit and Filiz Akın as one of the four-leaf clover of Yeşilçam.

She was known for playing proud, unyielding Anatolian women who refused injustice, and also took on unusual projects such as the 1976 Kadın Hamlet. She produced the Kemal Sunal comedies Bekçiler Kralı, Dokunmayın Şabanıma and Yüz Numaralı Adam, co-wrote the 1986 film Garip with Memduh Ün and Bülent Oran, worked on the set design of Postacı (1984) and served as art director on Gün Ortasında Karanlık (1990).

Her first best-actress prize at the Golden Orange came in 1965 for Keşanlı Ali Destanı, and Sürtüğün Kızı, Ezo Gelin, Boş Beşik and Acı brought the same award again. She entered politics in 1988 and served as mayor of Şişli for the social-democratic SHP from 1989 to 1994. Her long companion was the director Memduh Ün. She died aged 79 on 24 January 2022 of organ failure linked to COVID-19, and by her own wish was buried beside Ün in Bodrum.