İsmet Hürmüzlü

İsmet Hürmüzlü — Biography

İsmet Hürmüzlü was a man of the theatre from the Iraqi Turkmen community who became an actor, director and administrator at the Turkish State Theatres. He took part in founding Turkmen theatre in Kirkuk and spent most of his life in Turkey. Besides acting he was known as a director and as a playwright.

His stage career began in the 1950s, when he was among the founders of the Kirkuk Turkmen Theatre in the city where he was born. After coming to Turkey he entered the theatre department of the Ankara State Conservatory in 1961, and on graduating in 1969 he began working at the State Theatres. In the 1970s he founded the Çağlar Art Theatre and tried experimental theatre forms, and in the 1980s he served for a time as deputy director-general of the State Theatres. He also took part in productions such as Ölüm Tuzağı, Gömü, Ana Hanım Kız Hanım, Gün Ortasında Karanlık, Mevlana, Yedi Kocalı Hürmüz, Silvanlı Kadınlar and 72. Koğuş.

His own play Ölüm Kabini earned him an honour award in Sweden in 1992, and he also received an Order of Respect from the Almaty Uyghur State Theatre in Kazakhstan. On screen he appeared in Valley of the Wolves: Iraq (2006) and Sıla (2006). He died on 19 January 2013 in a hospital in Ankara, where he had been treated, and after a ceremony at the Küçük Tiyatro he was buried at Karşıyaka Cemetery.