THE EXCEPTIONAL STORY OF AN ARMENIAN ACTOR
BY STAFF
– POSTED ON DECEMBER 6, 2014
POSTED IN: ARMENIA, ENTERTAINMENT, NEWS
H. Salih Zengin
As the youngest son of a poor Armenian-Turkish family from Diyarbakır,
Kevork Malikyan has led a life like something out of a film, having
starred in numerous well-known films and theater productions in
London. Let’s rewind this film 61 years and press play.
The Malikyans are a very poor family from the village of Kestel in
Sivas’s Divrigi district. Mardiros Toros, the father, is a craftsman
who sews gunny sacks, but because he speaks Armenian, Kurdish, the
Zaza language, French and Turkish, he also works as a translator and
letter-writer. Mother Tuma is a housewife. What Malikyan remembers from
those days is the church which he and his father used to go to when he
was three or four years old, but recalls too his father’s generosity
and good heart. Malikyan, who is now 71 years old reminisces,
“My father taught me the adhan [call for prayer]; I used to recite
the adhan so well, but I have forgotten it over time. I would have
probably liked reciting adhan in a mosque. We should learn to live
together. You cannot think about separation.” Malikyan sometimes
uses English words when he speaks in Turkish. His face, covered with
a big smile, looks like it is ready to explode out of happiness, but
if you only knew what sorrows that face hides behind the smile. Let’s
continue with the film from where we left off.
The life of 10-year-old Kevork, who goes to school in the mornings
and works in a tailor’s shop in the afternoons, changes when a priest
comes to Diyarbakır to choose students to attend a seminary. His
mother tells him to take a bath and get ready as his father is lost in
thoughts, musing, “I could not send his three siblings to school since
I do not have money; I hope this one can save himself from poverty.”
After answering a couple of mathematics questions, Kevork heads to
Istanbul in 1953. He studies the fourth and fifth grades at Karagözyan
elementary school and enrolls to the Surp Hac Tıbrevank Seminary
in Uskudar. Soon after, he begins his education at his new school,
and his talent is discovered by a graduate priest from Oxford. He
leaves for London in 1963 and graduates from the Rose Bruford College
for drama in London. Over the course of time, he works with renowned
directors and actors including Roger Moore, Alan Parker, Sigourney
Weaver, Michael Caine and Anthony Hopkins. Malikyan also stars in
Shakespeare plays for 20 years at the most important theaters in
London. While he is achieving the kind of success Turkish actors could
only dream of, his father Malikyan passes away in 1974. But with the
threat of mandatory military duty awaiting him back home in Turkey,
he cannot return to attend his father’s funeral. Malikyan remembers
those days in tears: “The day my father passed away he said he did
not feel well and asked my mother to cook soup for him. Then he said
‘give me Kevork’s photograph.’ He used to hang my autographed photo
beside his bed. He took my photo in his hands and fell asleep. He
never woke up.”
In order to avoid the problem of military service, he renounces
his Turkish citizenship, and returns to Istanbul after 19 years
when his mother is taken ill. He takes his mother to live in his
London house, but she dies in 1984. “I lost my citizenship as well
as my mother. She stayed in London for eight months but she hated
it. She cared about neighborly relations,” he states. Malikyan is
given a part in Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”
alongside Harrison Ford by the director himself, who comes to London
in 1986. “I saw him [Spielberg] in a room. He said, ‘I heard that
you are starring in TV shows. Is there any chance that we might have
seen you in a film screened in the U.S.?’ Then, he remembered my role
in ‘Midnight Express.’ ” Malikyan says that he and the seven other
actors fly to Spain in a private jet. After shooting the first scene,
Spielberg turns to Malikyan and says, “Welcome to the family.”
So, why does Malikyan return to Turkey at the peak of his career? The
actor is rejected by the Istanbul Conservatory and the great actors
of the time in 1962 because his Turkish is not good enough, but this
rejection only makes him more ambitious. “Turkish is the language of
my state and nation,” Malikyan says in very fluent Turkish. He returns
to Turkey in 2011 and four months later, he once more takes Turkish
citizenship. Currently, he is playing the role of the prime-minister’s
undersecretary Oktem in the TV show “Reaksiyon” (Reaction), and gives
English drama lessons to students at Kadir Has University. If any
other Turkish actor was as successful as Malikyan, he would praise
himself to the skies; however, Malikyan is very humble. “There is
nothing to exaggerate. I have worked with important people. They are
great but they also know how to act like normal people. In Turkey,
everybody is a great actor; maybe they are, but we do not see it.”
Malikyan continues, smiling. He says he has not yet played his favorite
character, and notes that there are very few people in Europe who
understand Turks. He emphasizes that he has cleared the way for
Turkish actors and says, “European filmmakers used to give the roles
of muggers, murderers, smugglers and mafia to Turkish actors. “Once,
I told my manager ‘I want to play different, better roles,’ and my
world changed.” But, what if he had stayed in Turkey and had never
gone to London? “If I had stayed here, I would have become a priest,”
he supposes. He continued, “I have always been lucky in life. There
are times when I wish I had been a priest. One of my friends in school
became the head patriarch of Germany. When I returned to Turkey,
the current patriarch Aram AteÃ…~_yan said, ‘It is good you became an
actor, because if you had stayed here, you would have been sitting
in this chair.'” Then he smiles and adds, “Kevork means ‘leader,’
I guess luck is on my side.” This incredible story which starts in
Diyarbakır, continues in London and ends in Istanbul, is filled with
sorrow, luck, fate, success, sadness and love; just like a film.