Ayla Karaca

Ayla Karaca — Biography

Ayla Karaca, born Atina Miloharakti, was an actress whose career began on the stage as a child and ran from the cinema of the 1950s to television series in the 2000s. She is best remembered as Eleni in the series Yabancı Damat, a role that also made her known in Greece. She died in İzmir on 17 March 2021, aged 87.

Born in Kurtuluş, Istanbul, she first appeared on stage in 1944, while still a child, in the play Kapan at the Ses Theatre. A Greek-language song she sang raised her profile, and she then joined the core company of Muammer Karaca's troupe. During an eight-month tour of Anatolia she took the first name Ayla, given by her friends, and the surname of Muammer Karaca to make her stage name. In 1948 she worked in Toto Karaca's touring theatre, and when Faruk Kenç and Vedat Örfi Bengü noticed her she made her first film, Ayşe'nin Duası, in 1949. Her busiest film period came in 1951 with Lale Devri, Sürgün, Yavuz Sultan Selim ve Yeniçeri Hasan and Barbaros Hayreddin Paşa, in which she played Countess Julia; in 1953 she played Türkan Sultan in Köroğlu.

After marrying in the 1950s she gave up acting and settled in America, returning to Turkey in 1978. Her first marriage had been to the actor Tevhit Bilge. She went back to acting in the late 1990s: Neşeli Günler and Sevda Rüzgârları in 1997, Yabancı Damat in 2004 and the second season of Aşk Bir Hayal in 2010 made up her television years.