Bülent Kayabaş

Bülent Kayabaş — Biography

Bülent Kayabaş was a versatile character actor of Yeşilçam, and today he is remembered above all as the villain Ferruh Durak in Karateci Kız (1973) and its drawn-out death scene. Rediscovered online in 2012, the scene drew millions of views, was dubbed the "worst movie death scene ever" and was parodied in an episode of Regular Show. Yet he was an artist who worked for more than four decades on stage and screen and also did voice work.

He turned professional in 1961 at the Eskişehir Municipal Theatre, appeared with many private companies between 1961 and 2000, and won the Avni Dilligil best actor award in 1981. He entered cinema in 1963 and appeared in well over a hundred films and nearly two hundred productions in all. His filmography also includes Karateciler İstanbul'da (1974), Şeytan Köşeyi Döndü (1979) and Futboliye (1983). In the 2000s he appeared in Filler ve Çimen and Pardon and lent his voice to Turkish versions of animated films such as Winnie the Pooh and Atlantis.

In his later years he played Sabri Fırıldak in the Fırıldak Ailesi productions. He died of colorectal cancer on 19 April 2017 in Istanbul, in the hospital where he was being treated.