Turkey’s showbizz guru dies

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Orhan Boran, a radio and TV host and Turkey’s first stand-up comedian, died at his home May 26.

Boran was also widely known for his laudable use of the Turkish language. Boran was a significant figure in the Turkish show business industry.

In the 1960s Boran hosted nearly all of the radio quiz programs in Turkey and also created a famous fictitious character named Yuki (a rabbit-like character voiced by Boran himself) for a radio show. Boran created other characters besides Yuki, entertaining listeners many years with stories of a derelict brother-in-law, a sister-in-law doomed to be an old maid, and many more. In the late 1990s, an animated TV series featuring Yuki was produced based on scripts from the early radio programs, but because of marketing problems was never aired.

Having won numerous awards from the Ministry of Culture and the Turkish Language Association, in 1992 Boran joined the faculty of the Marmara University School of Communications in order to share his knowledge with the younger generation, who always meant a great deal to him, but although he loved being an academic, his heavy work schedule forced him to resign from the post. After a 59-year career, Boran retired from show business on June 10, 2005.