Franco-Turkish actor Tchéky Karyo, known for roles in L’Ours and Nikita, died on Friday, October 31, 2025, at age 72 from cancer. His family announced the news in a statement to AFP. Born in Istanbul in 1953, he had a varied career in French and international cinema.
Tchéky Karyo, a Franco-Turkish actor who appeared in about 80 films, passed away from cancer, as stated by his family in a communiqué: “Valérie Keruzoré, his wife, and their children have the pain of announcing the passing of Tchéky Karyo, taken by cancer this Friday, October 31.” The announcement was made to AFP by his agent Elisabeth Tanner.
Born in Istanbul in 1953, Karyo gained fame in the late 1980s with the lead role in Jean-Jacques Annaud’s L’Ours, a hit with nearly nine million admissions where he played a bear hunter overcome by remorse. In 1990, he followed with Luc Besson’s Nikita, portraying the ambiguous recruiter opposite Anne Parillaud.
His career began in French auteur cinema, notably in 1982’s Toute une nuit by Chantal Akerman and 1984’s Les Nuits de la pleine lune by Éric Rohmer. A polyglot fluent in French, English, Spanish, and Arabic, he worked with directors like Jean-Pierre Jeunet in Le Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (2001), Walter Salles in Terra Estrangeira (1995), and Ridley Scott in 1492: Christophe Colomb alongside Gérard Depardieu. More recently, he appeared in the series The Missing and Alexandre Astier’s Kaamelott. He also had a theater career, including at the Avignon Festival in the early 1980s, and ventured into music.
In 2017, in Midi Libre, he said: “This profession helped me become a better man. Dramatic art is a way to enter a reserved and magical space where you go in the company of others who also need this impulse and perhaps to take a step back from themselves.”
His eclectic filmography includes La Balance by Bob Swaim and Michael Bay’s Bad Boys, as well as Gérard Corbiau’s Le Roi danse (2000).