Leyla Sayar

Leyla Sayar — Biography

Born Emel Leyla Sayar on 27 December 1939 in Istanbul, she was educated at the American College for Girls and came from a family of Circassian and Macedonian Turkish descent. She entered the film world in 1957 after winning a contest run by Yıldız magazine, took second place in a national beauty pageant the following year, and quickly became known as one of the most striking leading ladies of her era.

Alongside acting, Sayar also trained in ballet, performed as a singer and tried her hand at writing. Through the 1960s she became one of the busiest names in Turkish popular cinema, appearing in more than sixty films within a single decade, including the widely remembered Aşk ve Kin (1964) and Ankara Ekspresi (1970).

She largely withdrew from the screen in the mid-1970s and spent her later years out of the public eye. Sayar died in Istanbul on 22 July 2016 at the age of 76.