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| Halide Piskin or Habibe Molla |
Habibe Molla was born on July 16, 1906, in the family of a soldier in Shkodër. She was a cheerful and outgoing child, but her life would change after the execution of her father, whose name is unknown, we know just the surname Molla. Habibe Molla lived with her grandfather in Shkodër until he decided to leave Turkey and settle in Uskudar, Istanbul.
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| Habibe Molla or Halide Piskin (left) in the film Flying Saucers Over Istanbul |
From Shkodra in Albania to Shkodra on the Bosphorus After graduating from high school, Habibe Molla was appointed a school teacher in Uskudar. It is worth stopping in this region of Istanbul on the Bosphorus Strait because the name of this region with a population of nearly one million inhabitants has the same historical name as Shkodra, Scutari. In 1338 the Ottoman leader Orhan Gazi took Scutari, allowing the Ottomans to have a base right next to Constantinople. As for the name, it is believed that the name Scutari, like Shkodra, means "raw skin". It is well-known fact that even Shkodra in Albania was a center where skins of forest animals were collected and traded to Venice and elsewhere through commercial ships that passed through the navigable Buna at that time.
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| Habibe Molla on the cover of a Turkish newspaper of the time |
When Habibe Molla became the first female actress in Turkey
In 1923, Sadi Fikret created a mobile theater group that was so popular at that time.
Spectators did not come to the theater, but the traveling theater went from village to village and city to city. Most of the shows were vaudeville skits, mostly comedy skits. Recommended by a relative, the leader of the traveling theater troupe accepts her for a tour in Izmir.
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| Halide Piskin or Habibe Molla in one of her roles |
Theater plays at that time did not have female actors. There were men playing the roles of the women. This has also happened in Albania until recently. Habibe Molla, now under the name Halide Piskin, had a slightly gloomy nature. It was precisely her life without parental love and with misfortunes in life that made her beautiful. And quite different from her age, the role they gave her was that of an aunt, which was characterized by strong nasal speech, a type that she realized very beautifully and that she would continue for years as a character in countless situations and in different genres as in the theater but also in radio shows. However, in 1925 happened that the mobile theater group could not continue its activities. Since she was the first stage actress, she was accepted without much hesitation at the Istanbul Theater. In 1933 she became very popular with her roles in films and was a sought-after actress. It was even written in the chronicles of the time that spectators flocked to all the country's cinemas to see Halide Piskin's brilliant play. He goes through a difficult period and is forced to work on the radio always with the type of humor that he had created, with sketches and humor that he prepared herself. She was also considered a very good creator of literary stage materials.
In 1944, after working in various theater companies, she returned to the Istanbul City Theater, becoming one of the leading actresses. She has a wide repertoire as an actress but also as a film writer such as in "Kivircik PASA" (1941), "Duvaksiz Gelin" (1942) and "Dügün gecesi" (1933). In the filmography of Halide Piskin we can also list: "Kafes Arkasinda" (1930), "Fermanlı Deli Hazretleri" (1930), "Kafatası" (1932), "Yanlışlıklar Komedyası" (1938), "Anna Karenina" (1939), "Lüküs Hayat" 1950, "Yelpaze" (1955), "Kızımın Başına Gelenler" (1958), "Bir Kilo Namus" (1959). Her last Halide Piskin film was "What happened to my daughter", for which she also wrote the screenplay. She was a great, talented actress, accomplished as an artist but also the author of many scripts and skits, the first variety artist in Turkey, and considered a great, extraordinary, and unrepeatable talent. Although she did not have the proper professional education for the stage, she managed to become the first and most popular actress in Turkey. And further, even though bad luck had followed her in life, on stage she evoked so much humor, so much light, and faith in the people who loved her so much. As she remained lonely as a child in Shkodër, so did her life, a vigorous artistic life, she was passionate, with a prominent individuality, never being separated from the theater stage or the movie screen. Died due to kidney damage at the age of 53, on November 1, 1959, in the city of Istanbul. Her films in Turkey are still seen and admired to this day, so much has the great artist who was born in the city of Shkodra, Halide Piskin, left a important mark on Turkish cinematography.