Erdoğan Atalay (born on September 22, 1966 in Hanover, Germany[1]) is a Turkish-German TV star.[2]
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Having already made his first appearance as a minor actor in "Aladdin and the miracle lamp" at the National Theatre of Hanover, he studied acting in Hamburg. Afterwards he took on first parts in several German television series such as Music Groschenweise, Employment for Lohbeck, Double Employment and The Guard.[3] In 1996 Action Concept engaged him for the role he has played successfully up to now: Semir Gerkhan in the German television series "Alarm für Cobra 11 – Die Autobahnpolizei".[4]
There are many reasons why Erdoğan Atalay became that successful as Semir Gerkhan. In the beginning he just added some humour and humanity to the series by merely acting brilliantly as a very sympathetic sidekick. Then he started enriching the stories by ad-libs. Besides he proved himself a real action hero by doing a great deal of amazing stunts. Soon nobody could tell anymore how many stunts he had already pulled. Due to that he became the actual hero of this long-living series. He also added another human dimension to his role and the whole show when Semir Gerkhan conquerered and finally married Andrea Schäfer (played by Carina Wiese). But his most stunning quality might be that despite all his very well-earned success he kept being a friendly and really modest man after all. Subsequently he as popular in Turkey as in Germany and likewise in many dozens of otherwise very different countries around Germany and Turkey.