Elia Kazan’s house in Anatolia village awaits attention

KAYSERİ

The world-famous U.S. director Elia Kazan’s house located in the Central Anatolian province of Kayseri has fallen into ruin over the years.

Four years after Kazan was born in 1909 to an Anatolian Greek family living under the Ottoman rule, his rug merchant parents moved to the U.S., leaving the house in Kayseri’s Melikgazi district abandoned.

Since then, only one expropriation wall remained from the house, which started to collapse due to neglect over time.

“We tried to have a picture of the house at that time reconstructed, but this effort was fruitless. We could not go further; we could not find much information,” said Ali Kapısız, the muhtar (head) of Germir village in Melikgazi.

“I think it is very important for the promotion of Germir that Elia Kazan is from here. A similar structure can be built here. A museum of films belonging to Kazan can also be established,” Kapısız noted.

He called on the authorities to take over this structure as soon as possible and bring it to tourism.

Known for his creative stage direction and described by The New York Times as one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history, Kazan received two and his films dozens of Oscar awards.

However, his last Oscar award-winning in 1999 caused a controversy due to Kazan’s past history regarding his involvement with the Hollywood Blacklist in the 1950s.

When Kazan was awarded nearly 50 years of his anti-communist remarks, dozens of actors chose not to applaud as 250 demonstrators picketed the event.

Having visited his motherland of Kayseri three times during his lifetime, the director died from natural causes in his New York apartment in 2003.