I wonder if Selma Güneri had ever dreamt of becoming a two-time award-winning actress as a 14-yearoldgirl? In SonKuşlar/The Last Birds(Erdoğan Tokatlı)she was the girl in braids whose family wastrying to wed her as a way out of financial troubles. In Ben Öldükçe Yaşarım / I Live As I Die she wasa child-woman, a belly-dancer. In 1966, these two films brought her the Best Actress Award at theAntalya Film Festival. She was the youngest ever to win the statuette. She often credited her co-starYılmaz Güney as the person who taught her how to act. She was young, but she wasn’t an outsider inshow business. Her father was Lütfi Güner, a popular singer at the time, and her uncle was AhmetÜstün, another renowned singer. Due to her father’s work she spent her childhood in the US.After graduating elementary school she returned to Istanbul with her mother. She was the winner ofPerde magazine’s young talent contest and soon after appeared in her first film, İstanbul’un Kızları /The Girls of Istanbul (Halit Refiğ).Selma Güneri is also known as a singer, but it would be a mistake to consider her as someone whogave it a go as a second career after acting. She spent her childhood singing growing up in a musicalfamily. In cinema, she proved her prowess in acting at a very young age and kept it on the same levelthroughout her career. She was last seen on the TV series Dinle Sevgili (2011). We would love to see heron the silver screen again. -Sevin Okyay