Mine Mutlu

Mine Mutlu — Biography

Mine Mutlu, born Emine Özatmaca, was a well-known Yeşilçam actress who appeared in close to seventy productions between the late 1960s and the early 1980s. Her film life began after she was crowned Miss Turkey and ended before she turned forty; the press kept remembering her afterwards as the "unlucky queen" of Turkish cinema.

Chosen Miss Turkey in a 1966 contest, Mutlu entered cinema at 19, playing supporting parts at first and then moving to leading roles. Until 1974 she worked mostly in comedies, among them Kadın Severse, Tahran Macerası, Ala Geyik, Hayat Kavgası and Zindandan Gelen Mektup. She shared top billing with Ayhan Işık, Sadri Alışık, Zeki Müren, Bülent Ersoy and Ahmet Mekin. Yılmayan Şeytan (1972), Mıstık (1971) and Köyden İndim Şehire (1974) also belong to her filmography. After a brief spell in the erotic film wave that took hold in the 1970s she withdrew from cinema and sang on stage for a while; Beddua in 1980 and the television series İntibah in 1982 are among her last credits.

Mutlu married in 1978 and had two children; her son Çağkan Çulha is a television and commercial actor. After about a year of illness with lung cancer she died in Istanbul on 18 September 1990 and was buried at Feriköy Cemetery. Some sources give Isparta as her birthplace.