When the couple, who married in 1939 at the Iranian Consulate, had their union registered officially by the Republic of Turkey in 1952, little Cem was confused. Discovering the marriage certificate in the house at the age of nine or ten, he was quick to accost his parents, “Tell me quick, am I illegitimate?”
Cem Karaca’s childhood was spent in Istanbul’s Bakirköy district, in the backstage of theatres. He dreamed early on of a musical career, but while his mother supported him, his father, who had got it into his head that his son was going to be a diplomat, did everything he could to thwart him. He booed his son when he went on stage at the family nightclub and even went so far as to hire a man to go on stage and say, “Give it up, son. Here, take this fifty liras and let a real Adana man play so we can dance.” But the indomitable Cem went on performing the songs of Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
ROCK COMES TO TURKEY
The first group Karaca formed while he was a boarding student at Robert College was called ‘Cem Karaca and the Dynamites’.