Leman Çıdamlı

Leman Çıdamlı — Biography

Leman Çıdamlı was an actress who created one of Turkish television's best-known mother-in-law characters. Nuriye Kantar, known popularly as Nöriye, in Kaynanalar became identified with her, and long afterwards she was still called Turkey's mother-in-law in the press. Across roughly three decades on stage, screen and television, she spent much of her working life on characters of this kind.

Her career began in 1974 with the film Kaynanalar and, the same year, Köyden İndim Şehire and Kanlı Deniz. Kaynanalar then became a television series; Nöri Gantar Ailesi followed in 1975, Bülbül Ailesi in 1976, and the show was made again in 1988. In the 1980s she appeared in Perihan Abla, Aşkın Gözü Kördür and Bıçkın, and in 1989 in Zehir Hafiye as Zeynep's aunt. In the 1990s she took part in productions such as Varyemez, Mahallenin Muhtarları and Gülşen Abi (Naciye); in Mahallenin Muhtarları she played the mother-in-law Seher for about ten years. One of her last films was Sen Ne Dilersen (2005).

She died in Istanbul on 18 December 2012, aged 80, shortly after her husband Nejat Çıdamlı, and was buried beside him at Pendik Şeyhli Cemetery. Her daughter Ayşegül Uygurer is also an actress.