Civan Canova

He was born in Ankara in 1955. His father is theater actor Mahir Canova and his mother is Gündüz Sencer. His parents separated when he was young, and he was raised by his grandmother. His mother made her second marriage with actor Kartal Tibet. During his primary school years, he took small roles in Radio Children's Hour, directed by his father, on Ankara Radio. His stepfather Kartal Tibet introduced him to film sets. After primary school, he studied at TED Ankara College as a boarding student. After graduating from Ankara College in 1973, he started acting in Yılmaz Güney's movie 'Friend' in the summer of 1974, while he was preparing for the conservatory exams. In the same year, he enrolled in Ankara State Conservatory Theater Department. While he was a student, he starred in the movie Nehir (1977), directed by Şerif Gören. He graduated from the conservatory in 1979 and joined the State Theater staff and started working at the Istanbul State Theatre, taking part in many plays. In addition to theater, the artist also took part in films. He started writing for the first time in 1989 by writing a movie script called Blind Date. This script entered the top ten in the script writing competition opened by the Ministry of Culture. He wrote his first play, In the Waters of Doomsday, in 1994. This play was staged by Kenan Işık; İsmet Küntay was deemed worthy of the Best Writer Award and Avni Dilligil was deemed worthy of the Best Theater Writer Award. In his third play, Curfew (1997), which he wrote after the play titled Beyond Red Light, he ironically described a day spent by hotel guests who could not go out on a counting day. He won the Cevdet Kudret Literature Award with this play. Canova's plays Men's Toilet (1999), which contains an absurd look at the world of men, the one-woman Wedding Song (2002), which she wrote based on her own marriage and tells the story of this marriage from the perspective of a young woman who marries a more mature intellectual man, and Full Leaves (2005), which deals with the isolated relationships of the internet age, were among her most performed plays. Canova wrote the script of the TV series Bizim Aile in 1996 and played the character Ataç in the series. He played the roles of Artist Celal in the TV series Çiçek Taksi and Rahmi Gürpınar in the TV series Paramparça. In 2006, he won the Golden Orange Best Supporting Actor Award at the 43rd Golden Orange Film Festival for his role as the torturer cop in the movie Homecoming, and shared the Best Supporting Actor Award at the 12th Sadri Alışık Cinema and Theater Actor Awards with İlyas Salman, who played the role of Cuma in the movie "Sis ve Gece". Continuing his acting career at the Istanbul State Theatre, Canova was nominated for the Most Successful Actor of the Year award at the 2nd Afife Theater Awards (1998) for his role in the play Lament for a Spy, and for the Most Successful Musical or Comedy Actor of the Year Award at the 5th Afife Theater Awards (2001) for his role in the play Kaktüs Çiçeği. In 2011, he won the Afife Theater Awards' Most Successful Actor of the Year Award for his role in the play 'Bury the Dead'. Canova, who also deals with painting, opened a painting exhibition at Teşvikiye Erinç Art Gallery in 2016 and at Bitiyatro in Beyoğlu, Istanbul in 2017. Civan Canova, who was treated for lung cancer, died in Istanbul on August 20, 2022, at the age of 67. After the memorial ceremony held at the Istanbul State Theater Mecidiyeköy Grand Hall on August 23, 2022, he was buried in Zincirlikuyu Cemetery.