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Türkan Şoray
Photo: Wikimedia Commons · Nevit Dilmen ( talk ) · CC BY-SA 3.0

Türkan Şoray

Actor · 81 years old

Biography

Profile

Age81
Birth dateJune 28, 1945
BirthplaceEyüpsultan
ProfessionActor, Film director, Screenwriter
Zodiac signCancer

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Türkan Şoray — Biography

Türkan Şoray is the star of Yeşilçam known as the "Sultan" of Turkish cinema, credited with some 222 films, the most of any actress worldwide. She is one of the four actresses, with Fatma Girik, Hülya Koçyiğit and Filiz Akın, who symbolize the golden age of Turkish film, and the only one of them who also moved behind the camera. Away from film these days, she took part in July 2026 in a joint exhibition of her works with Yalçın Gökçebağ.

Her career began in 1960 with Köyde Bir Kız Sevdim; she had come to a film set with her friend Emel Yıldız, and Türker İnanoğlu encouraged her to try the screen. Metin Erksan's Acı Hayat (1962) brought her the first of her Golden Oranges and Vesikalı Yarim (1968) the second; over the years she was named best actress four times. Her on-screen partnership with Kadir İnanır lives on through Kara Gözlüm, Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalım, Dila Hanım and Cevriyem. She turned to directing with Dönüş (1972), directing Azap, Bodrum Hakimi and Uzaklarda Arama alone and Yılanı Öldürseler with Şerif Gören. From the 1990s she concentrated on television: İkinci Bahar paired her with Şener Şen and Tatlı Hayat with Haluk Bilginer.

She was named a State Artist in 1991 and a UNICEF goodwill ambassador for Turkey in 2010, and around then she presented Sinema Benim Aşkım on NTV, talking through her film career with guests. In June 2018 she said she was quitting acting because no good scripts were coming her way. A primary school bears her name.

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Their work through different eyes

AI-assisted editorial takes on this person's screen work, written from different viewer perspectives. They are not reader comments; those are below.

Yeşilçam Nostalgic A viewer raised on the classics, looking for warm storytelling and strong acting.

Three stops make a good start. Acı Hayat shows the seriousness of melodrama and heartfelt acting together. Vesikalı Yarim, in Ömer Lütfi Akad's plain, bittersweet telling, is one of the warmest. Selvi Boylum Al Yazmalım, with its music, its affection and its moral center, recalls the sincere side of old Yeşilçam. These three are enough to see why Şoray was so sought after on screen; the rest can follow in turn.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

In a crowded filmography repetition is unavoidable, and in some years it shows. In Aşk Mabudesi, Tatlı Meleğim and Kadın Severse, films from the late 1960s and around 1970, a loved and often self-sacrificing woman called Leyla hardens into a mold. The script structure and the editing surround the role rather than carry it, and the performance leans on the same note. In Mine or Seni Seviyorum, made with Atıf Yılmaz, the mold loosens, and that is where the difference reads. These formula-leaning years may be the lightest stretch of the filmography, and it pays to be selective.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Şoray's career is a useful way to follow how Turkish cinema portrayed women. On the line running from Ekmekçi Kadın to Berdel and Hazal, the woman appears as a figure seen through work, family rules and the tension between village and city. Her move behind the camera in Dönüş suggests that this outlook was not limited to acting. The films are helpful material for anyone who wants to understand how their own periods looked at women.

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