Kartal Tibet, veteran Turkish film actor, dies aged 83

Kartal Tibet, a distinguished Turkish actor and screenwriter, has died at the age of 83.

“Goodbye, my brother Kartal, I will miss you so much,” wrote actor Civan Canova on social media early Friday, sharing a black-and-white photo of his longtime colleague.

The Turkish Culture Ministry also confirmed the passing of the veteran actor.

“We learned with deep sadness of the death of the master actor, director, and screenwriter #KartalTibet, who left unforgettable traces in our cinema and theater history,” the ministry wrote on Twitter.

The veteran actor was born in 1938 in the capital Ankara and acted in nearly 200 movies for the Turkish cinema industry.

A graduate of Ankara University’s State Conservatory Theater Department, the actor’s films rank among the classics of Yesilcam, as Turkish Hollywood in the 1950s through ‘70s is known.

In 1961, Tibet was among the founders of Ankara's first private theater, Meydan Sahne.

Tibet is well known for his role in the movie series Tarkan, adopted from Sezgin Burak’s cartoon character, “a fearless and loyal warrior of Attila the Hun” as well as other adaptations of print stories for the screen.

Tibet made his directorial debut with the film Tosun Pasha in 1977, and directed 56 films, most of them local blockbusters. Tibet also worked in more than 20 of these films with legendary Turkish comedian Kemal Sunal.

In 2006, Tibet directed The Son of the Man Who Saved the World (Dunyayi Kurtaran Adam'in Oglu), commonly known as Turks in Space, and Americans at the Black Sea, a comedy about a US military recovery operation on Turkey's Black Sea coast.