Levent Üzümcü

Levent Üzümcü — Biography

Levent Üzümcü is an actor who rose from the stage of the İstanbul City Theatres to national fame on television as Cem Onaran in Avrupa Yakası, and whose career later extended into theatre management and municipal politics. Since 2024 he has served as general artistic director of the İzmir City Theatres.

He grew up in İzmir in a family that had emigrated from Greece, studied theatre at the Anadolu University State Conservatory in Eskişehir, and has been an İstanbul City Theatres actor since 1996. After the conservatory he worked for a time at the Bursa State Theatre and, after military service, took acting-direction classes at the Los Angeles Film School. From 2004 to 2009 he was known across the country for atv's Avrupa Yakası, and in the same years he hosted the quiz show Akıl Şampiyonu; he also appeared in Bayanlar Baylar, Beyza'nın Kadınları, Abimm, Harem, Riverbanks and Bilmemek. On stage, for Bir Yaz Gecesi Rüyası and İstibdat Kumpanyası he was named best male theatre actor at the 2015 Sadri Alışık awards. He founded İstanbul Halk Tiyatrosu and a theatre company bearing his own name.

Over his stance during the Gezi events and a speech he gave, he was dismissed from his post at the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality in 2015; in 2019 he was elected to the Şişli municipal council for the CHP, chaired its culture and arts commission, and returned to the city theatres in March 2020.