Füsun Önal

Füsun Önal — Biography

Nuriye Füsun Önal was born on 11 March 1947 in Istanbul, an only child raised in Ankara; after graduating from TED Ankara College she studied English at Ankara University, where she began singing with the Erol Pekcan Jazz Orchestra after years of piano and voice training. She released dozens of singles and albums, winning four Golden Record awards and a Golden Butterfly for songs such as Senden Başka, Oh Olsun and Ah Nerede and the album Alo Ben Füsun, and in the 1980s became the first Turkish woman to headline two-hour solo concerts. She acted in films such as Hamsi Nuri (1973), Evet Mi Hayır Mı (1974) and Tamam Mı Devam Mı (1975), performing her own songs on screen, and took lead roles in Turkish stagings of Hair, Evita and Kelebekler Özgürdür; she has performed with the Tiyatro Kedi company since 2008. In 1993 she hosted the Show TV game show Evcilik Oyunu for 450 episodes, and staged fourteen photography exhibitions between 1990 and 2000. Encouraged by Tarık Dursun K. and Aziz Nesin, she began publishing books with Hayatı Denedim and has since written twenty titles. She was married to composer Attila Özdemiroğlu and to director Tunç Başaran, and later wrote about a relationship with actor Tarık Akan during her marriage to Özdemiroğlu.