Ayhan Işık was born Ayhan Işıyan on May 5, 1929 in the Konak district of İzmir. He was the youngest of six children. He lost his father when he was just six years old. In his posthumously published memoirs, Işık described his father as follows: "The most significant thing I remember about him is the way he smelled. I loved his hugging me before I went to bed. Once he took me fishing and carried me on his back on our way home since I was exhausted. That is all I can remember about him. I have always tried to force myself to remember more of him; unfortunately I couldn't."
Film after film, year after year, Işık's fame grew. People wanted to see him. Osman Seden, his Producer at that time, says that Işık began working in the films produced by Seden for TL 1,000 in the early 1950s, while he would be paid TL 100,000 in the early 1960s.
In 1952, Akad directed a very significant film called "Kanun Namına" (In the Name of the Law), in which Işık played the leading role mutually with Gülistan Güzey, the femme fatale of Turkish cinema in the 1950s. The film was an extraordinary drama about ordinary people, which brought the film great success. People loved the film, but they loved the young leading actor, Ayhan Işık, more.
Işık's films with Türkan Şoray provided a different kind of pairing. The two worked together in "Acı Hayat," 1962 and "Otobüs Yolcuları" (Bus Passengers), 1961. Neither had a happy ending and both were realistic. "Otobüs Yolcuları" was a political thriller while "Bitter Life" was a social drama.
Işık died in 1979 at the age of 50, which shocked his family, friends and fans. He was known for his disciplined and calm living free from any scandals. He lived a kingly life as much as the social and economic conditions of the filmmaking Business allowed him to, and died as "the king without a crown," as the press used to call him.
However, Ayhan Işık was not satisfied with his lot and visited many countries including Italy and Iran in order to find new possibilities and contacts to market Turkish films. Though paid at the highest level in Turkey, Işık's average fee for a hit film was less than one-10th of the fee paid to a leading actor in the U.S.
