Yılmaz Gündüz

Yılmaz Gündüz — Biography

Yılmaz Gündüz was a Turkish athlete who played basketball first and later worked in Yeşilçam. He played for Turkey at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki and wore the national shirt 49 times; after leaving sport he worked in action and adventure cinema as an actor, screenwriter, producer and director.

He began primary school in Tarsus and finished it in Kars, then graduated from Galatasaray High School and from the Faculty of Political Sciences at Ankara University, where he studied public finance. On court he played for Galatasaray from 1946 to 1950, for Mülkiye for the next two years, for Ankaragücü from 1952 to 1954 and for Fenerbahçe from 1954 to 1958, and also played football at Ankaragücü and in his first two Fenerbahçe seasons. With the national side he was in the squads for the 1951 and 1957 European Championships as well as the Olympics.

He entered cinema with Sevenler Ölmez (1963). In the following years he acted in films such as Ölüm Saçan Dudaklar, Örümcek Adam, Hedef Ankara, Kan ve Kurşun, Ringo Gestapo'ya Karşı and Fedai Komandolar Kıbrıs'ta; he appeared in twenty-four films as an actor and produced seventeen. He also wrote the screenplays of Korkusuz Yabancı (1968) and Acı Yalan (1969). In 1970 he directed Ölüm Pazarı, Fedailer, Bela Çiçekleri and Öldürmeye Yeminliyim, and his last acting credit is Belalı Serseri (1974). He died in 1997.