He was born on January 26, 1940 in Ankara.

Her real name is Ayten Kaçmaz. She spent her childhood in Ankara. Her father owned a restaurant. She has an older brother and an older sister named Yıldız. When she was 2 years old, her parents divorced. When her mother married someone else, her father remarried his first wife and Ayten and her siblings grew up there.

In 1952, she started the ballet department of the Ankara State Conservatory. 5 years later, with the recommendation of Muhsin Ertuğrul, she worked in the Children's Theater Department of Ankara State Theaters. In 1958, she joined the artistic staff of Ankara State Theater.

In 1965, he started to work in cinema with the movie Taçsız Kral (The King without a Crown), directed by Atif Yılmaz, in which he shared the lead role with Metin Oktay, the legendary football player and goal king of Galatasaray, along with Ajda Pekkan, Erol Taş and Gönül Yazar. But he gave more importance to theater than cinema. She played the lead role of Hürmüz in the musical Seven Kocalı Hürmüz.

Ayten Gökçer became a State Artist in 1988 and won many awards. She is often together with fellow actors Güven Hokna and Melek Baykal.

Ayten Gökçer met theater actor Cüneyt Gökçer in 1962 and married in 1964. She has a daughter named Aslı Gökçer (Oba).

Her husband, theater actor Cüneyt Gökçer, passed away on December 23, 2009.