Adalet Cimcoz (25 July 191013 March 1970) was a Turkish voice actress, art curator, critic, translator and gossip columnist. She dubbed many film stars over a period of more than thirty years. She also opened and curated Turkey's first and only woman-owned private art gallery for exhibitions of painting, sculpture, mosaic, ceramics, photography, patterns, and folk art. She critiqued literature, art, and theatre for twenty years. She translated a number of classical works of European literature from German to Turkish. She was also a gossip columnist under the pen name "Fitne Fücur" ("The Mischief-maker)".
Private life
Adalet was born to Hüseyin Tayfur and his wife Aliye in Kilitbahir village of Eceabat district in Çanakkale Province, then Ottoman Empire, on 25 July 1910. Her father was an artillery Colonel of the Ottoman Army stationed at the Dardanelles as the commander. of Kilitbahir Castle. Her mother was a German, whom her father met during an official military mission in the German Empire. She converted to Islam from Christianity after her marriage, and took the name Aliye. Adalet had two older brothers Hayri and Ferdii. Ferdi Tayfur would be also a voice actor.
In 1916, Adalet went to Germany with her family. She finished her primary education in 1921, and then completed her secondary education in Germany.
In 1939, she married Mehmet Ali Cimcoz. Thanks to her husband, who was a lawyer and had a social circle of friends in arts and politics, she met and became associated with notable people in arts and literature, among them Sabahattin Ali, Nâzım Hikmet, Cemal Tollu, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Ercüment Kalmık, Avni Arbaş, Kuzgun Acar, Ara Güler, and many more.
Career
Voice actress
Cimcoz, who was working at the Agricultural Products Bureau () as a translator, entered voice acting upon the recommendation of her voice actor brother Ferdi Tayfur. She dubbed for lead characters in both domestic and foreign films. She also provided support to her brother by dubbing for major female roles. Among the actresses she dubbed for were Türkan Şoray, Hülya Koçyiğit, Belgin Doruk, Fatma Girik, Filiz Akın, Muhterem Nur, and Neriman Köksal in numerous films. Her career in voice acting extended from 1936 until her death in 1970.
Cimcoz used the language of the common people. She adopted the expressions of the people heard during her childhood years in her father's house in the Kocamustafapaşa quarter of Old Istanbul. Finding the opportunity to watch all the tours of the traditional theater where she lived, she also performed the shadow play Karagöz and Hacivat at home. She transferred new and original folk expressions, and imitations of dialects captured from master Karagöz artists, to film. The owner of Lale Film, for whom Cimcoz worked many years, said that "she translated Ottoman Turkish language or foreign words and terms given in the screenplay into pure Turkish by making the dialogues kindly but firmly".
Filmography ( Voice )