Actor Tchéky Karyo has Died at the Age of 72

ACTOR: The French actor, Tchéky Karyo notably had a good career in Hollywood, something even rarer in his time, and notably starred in “Nikita” and “The Bear”

Franco-Turkish actor Tchéky Karyo, who has appeared in around 80 films including The Bear of Jean-Jacques Annaud and Nikita from Luc Besson, died Friday at the age of 72, his agent Elisabeth Tanner announced to AFP. “Valérie Keruzoré, his wife, and their children are saddened to report the disappearance of Tchéky Karyo who died of cancer this Friday 31st October “, said a press release from his family.

Born in Istanbul in 1953, Tchéky Karyo became known to the general public in the late 1980s by playing the leading role in The Bear, great success in theaters with nearly 9 million admissions, where he played a plantigrade hunter overcome with remorse.

The turning point Nikita with Luc Besson

In 1990, the actor with the piercing gaze and square jaw followed up with another success by playing the ambiguous role of the recruiting agent Nikita, formidable hitwoman played by Anne Parillaud in front of Luc Besson’s camera. A film then became cult.

The career of this polyglot who masters French, English, Spanish and Arabic began in French auteur cinema, notably in 1982 in front of Chantal Akerman’s camera for All night and ahead of that of Eric Rohmer in 1984 in Nights of the Full Moon.

His eclectic filmography brought him into contact with Jean-Pierre Jeunet in The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain (2001) and took it to foreign filmmakers, notably the Brazilian Walter Salles (Terra Estrangeira, 1995) or the American Ridley Scott in 1492: Christopher Columbus alongside Gérard Depardieu.

“This job helped me become a better man”

Tchéky Karyo also had a long career on stage and notably performed at Avignon Festival in the early 1980s.

“This job helped me become a better man. Dramatic art is a way of going into a reserved and magical space into which we enter in the company of other people who also need this impulse and perhaps to take a step back from themselves”, declared -he in 2017 in the columns of the newspaper Free lunch.