Cuneyt Arkin, Turkey's leading machismo action movie hero of the 1970s turns 73 today.
We are big fans of Arkin who is perhaps best known in the rest of the world for his gymnastics stunts that he performed as the lead in the famous/infamous 1982 film "The Man Who Saved the World," which is also known as "The Turkish Star Wars" since it was a rip-off of the George Lucas mega-blockbuster.
Arkin, who has appeared in more than 250 films, made his debut with "We Are Not Alone" in 1964. Up until the '70s, he was predominantly a romantic leading man along the lines of Gregory Peck or Rock Hudson with Turkish cinema goddess Turkan Soray often playing his conquests.
But, that quickly changed when Turkey's brief war with Greece over Cyprus in 1974 caused a nationalist frenzy in Turkey which was illustrated through Arkin's film of the period, most notably "Once Vatan/My Nation First" (1974).
Arkin also starred in "Little Cowboy" (1973), which is perhaps the ultimate oxy moron- a Turkish Western!
Though none of his films are available in the United States except through Turkish good distributors like tulumba.com, several of his films like "Lion Man" (1975) and "Holy Sword" (1982) have developed underground cult followings.
SIDEBAR: The world basketball championships are underway in Istanbul and both The United States and Turkey have performed well so far. Turkey beat France 95-77 and the team will next face Slovenia on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Team America, with NBA players like Kevin Durant, bounced the African nation of Angola out of the tournament with a 121-66 win in which a former Montana State player named Divaldo Mbguna scored four points for the losing side.
Turkey also won a road game by a 3-0 score against Kazakhstan (which is where the fictional journalist Borat hailed from) in a European Cup qualifier on Friday.
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