French-Turkish actor Tchéky Karyo, known for roles in Nikita and the BBC series The Missing, has died at the age of 72. His family announced on Friday that he had succumbed to cancer.
Born in Istanbul in 1953, Karyo began his career in French cinema in the 1980s, earning early awards and nominations. He gained international attention for his role as the hunter in Jean-Jacques Annaud's 1988 film The Bear, and later as the hard-nosed secret agent in Luc Besson's 1990 hit Nikita.
Karyo's multilingual abilities allowed him to work in international productions, including Ridley Scott's 1492: Conquest of Paradise, the James Bond film GoldenEye, and Bad Boys as drug kingpin Fouchet. He also appeared in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie and Walter Salles' Foreign Land.
For UK audiences, he was best known as French detective Julien Baptiste in the BBC crime drama The Missing and its spin-off Baptiste. Karyo is survived by his wife and children.
