Ali Rıza Soydan

Ali Rıza Soydan — Biography

Turkish actor and director Ali Rıza Soydan, whose roots lay in the theater, was best known on screen for playing the Pope in Faruk Aksoy's Fetih 1453 and a gendarmerie pasha in Kurtlar Vadisi Gladio. He had a many-sided working life across the stage, advertising, acting instruction and production, and died on 24 October 2019.

He began acting in school plays as a child and, in middle school, formed an amateur group that performed in the towns and villages of Niğde. In 1974 he went on tour with the İstanbul Halk Oyuncuları company, which was visiting Niğde, and so became a professional; he studied at a conservatory and appeared in more than twenty plays. He worked at the Orhan Erçin Theater in Ankara; in 1975 he joined the 45-strong cast of Pir Sultan staged by the Oyuncular Birliği company, in 1976 he founded a touring company that crossed Anatolia for two years, and in 1977 he acted in Sezuan'ın İyi İnsanı at the Vasıf Öngören Theater and appeared in the series Seyahatname. After the 1980 coup he worked for a long time in advertising as a creative director, art director and designer, and taught acting. In 1994 he staged Duyduk Duymadık Demeyin, which ran for two years in Istanbul and Ankara.

Later he worked as a manager and organizer, acted in more than twenty series and television films, and produced the television films Bekle Sevdiğim and Yarim Elin Oldu. In 2009 he settled in Belgium and lived in Antwerp.