Talented mega stars, Omar Sharif and Barbra Streisand’s scandalous affair during the filming of critically acclaimed box office hit Funny Girl made headline news globally due to the Israeli-Egyptian Six Day War breaking out at the same time in June 1967. First Sharif nearly got fired by the film’s Jewish financiers, then when a poster of the two stars kissing came out the following year, the Egyptian government nearly revoked his citizenship since  Jewish Barbra was such a vocal proponent of Israel. However, their hot affair only lasted the duration of the filming and the two stars went on to love countless others

Omar Sharif, internationally recognized actor of such classic epics as Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, playboy, gambling addict and loner, was born Michel Demitri Chalhoub, a Catholic of the Greek Orthodox denomination and of Lebanese descent, in Alexandria, in 1932. His father, Joseph Chalhoub, was a prosperous precious woods merchant who moved to Cairo when his son was four. Chalhoub became even wealthier when he started salvaging barbed wire left behind by the British during the Second World War in the desert, and turning it into nails. His  wife Claire, a glamorous socialite, and notoriously flamboyant gambler, soon came to the attention of King Farouk, as the only woman who could match the King’s high stakes. Claire relished her connection with the King, and becoming part of the elite.

According to Sharif, his father’s business was very successful during that time through “dishonest and immoral ways.” In a 2012 interview to Rachel Halliburton for the Independent, Sharif recalls, “My mother used to play cards with King Farouk. He believed she brought good luck to him – she was his mascot. He often came round to our house. I was around 10 years old at the time – if I came home and realised he was there, I would just sneak into bed. My mother used to sit up all night.” He laughs. “By night she would play cards, by day she would give me the slipper. She hit me on my backside every day till I was 14. She was an extraordinary woman – she lived till 1998. I was very close to her, even though she beat me all the time!”

At age 10, the chubby Chalhoub boy was sent to the elite Victoria College boarding school, where he demonstrated a flair for languages. He spoke Arabic, English, Greek, French, Spanish and Italian fluently, which later benefitted his acting career. At school, while playing the title character in his first production, The Invisible Duke, though he was concealed in a box on stage for most of the play, the acting bug bit him and he got hooked onto the thrill of performing. Though Michel graduated from Cairo University with a degree in Mathematics and Physics, he dreamt of becoming an actor, but his father wouldn’t hear of it. The young man reluctantly joined the family business and subsequently staged a suicide bid, slashing his wrists to scare his father. Michel was also fast becoming a ladies’ man, selling his possessions to take girlfriends to dinner if his parents refused to give him extra money. Finally, after much cajoling and threatening, the rebellious young man left for London to study acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).

In an Arab language film at the start of his career With his first wife, top Egyptian actress Faten Hamama and their son Tarek With good friend Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) that Sharif later said modestly was just shots of men riding camels

After King Farouk’s deposition in 1952 during the Egyptian Revolution, wealth changed hands in Egypt under President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s nationalisation policies and Chaloub’s business “took a beating,” according to Sharif. In 1954, Michel landed a part in an Arab language film The Blazing Sun opposite popular actress Faten Hamama. Faten had never been kissed on screen before, but she was so instantly smitten with the young actor that she made an exception for him.  The kiss became a national sensation, the two fell in love and quickly got married. Michel converted to Faten’s religion, Islam, taking on the name Omar Sharif, meaning nobleman, which also became his screen name to save his father the embarrassment of seeing his son go into showbiz. Over the next seven years the starry couple made more than a dozen movies together and had one son Tarek, born in 1957, who appeared age eight in Doctor Zhivago playing his father as a child.

In1962, Sharif, who at this time was unknown outside of Egypt, was cast by director David Lean in Lawrence Of Arabia as Sherif Ali Ben El Kharish, in what is now considered one of the “most demanding supporting roles in Hollywood history.” Historian Steven Charles Caton notes that Lean insisted on using ethnic actors to make the film authentic.

Starring opposite Julie Christie, whose proposition he turned down citing her fondness for fried egg sandwiches as the reason This epic film is set during WW I and the subsequent Russian Revolution. The war drama and its fallout is seen by the audience unfolding through the main protagonist’s eyes

Additionally, Lean chose Sharif “for his liquid brown irises — a perfect contrast to the star Peter O’Toole’s glittering blue eyes. Sharif’s first appearance, shimmering out of the desert haze, won countless admirers,” writes Halliburton.  “Despite the rebelliousness and towering ego, Sharif seems extremely malleable when it comes to those he respects.” Lean made him grow the moustache for the role that he kept for most of his life. “At some points, to hear him talk you’d think life began for Sharif only once Lean took him out of Egypt.”

Peter O’Toole, who played the titular role of T.E. Lawrence considered Sharif’s name ridiculous and insisted on calling him “Fred.” The pair soon became best buddies and used to take off for Beirut in the short breaks they had once a month while filming in the Jordanian desert.

“We’d drink without stopping for 48 hours … we went hunting girls in every bar, every nightclub,” Sharif writes in The Eternal Male, his in your face chauvinistic and machismo Seventies autobiography. Their hard-partying lifestyle landed them in jail the night before the film’s Hollywood premiere, when they accompanied comedian Lenny Bruce as he shot up with a hypodermic syringe. “The producer Sam Spiegel got us out of jail,” Sharif told Halliburton. “He arrived with six lawyers. Of course we were completely terrified.”

“My desires were strengthened by wanting to prove to my mother that I could be a star” With first husband actor Elliot Gould, with whom she split because his career couldn’t keep pace with hers

In later life, Sharif claimed to be baffled by the film’s success, saying it was just shots of men riding camels. He is reported to have said modestly, “I think it is a great film, but I am not very good in it. I also never thought anyone would go to see the film – three hours and 40 minutes of desert, and no girls!” Lauded for his mesmerizing entrance, Sharif’s turn in the classic earned him an Academy Award nod for Best Supporting Actor, as well as Golden Globe wins for Best Supporting Actor and New Star of the Year.

So pleased was Lean with Sharif’s performance that he cast him in the title role of his epic love story Doctor Zhivago (1965). The classic film was adapted from Boris Pasternak’s 1957 novel that was banned in the USSR for 30 years and is set during World War I and the Russian Revolution. Sharif plays the role of Yuri Zhivago, a poet and physician. Film historian Constantine Santas writes that Lean portrayed the period in a poetic and lyrical manner with powerful cinematography capturing the landscape accompanied by a haunting musical score by French composer and conductor Maurice Jarre, with whom he was also collaborating again. Jarre notably won Academy Awards for the “grand, sweeping themes” for both films. Sharif’s role is largely “passive” and his eyes are “the mirror of reality we ourselves see.”

Scenes from Funny Girl

Decades later Halliburton was reminded of the visual Sharif presents in the film when she meets him as a cheeky octogenarian, “the cheekbones like ridges along cliffs, the taunting imperfection of the gap-toothed smile, those eyes whose glittering fury was captured so strikingly by Lean in the scene from Doctor Zhivago where he watches the Cossacks slaughter peaceful demonstrators.”

During filming, the actor reportedly went through a daily routine of hair-straightening and skin-waxing to disguise his Egyptian looks and later said that the film left him on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Sharif was awarded a Golden Globe for Best Actor for his intense and yet subtle portrayal.

When the film’s leading lady Julie Christie prpositioned him, Sharif turned her down, citing her fondness for fried egg sandwiches as the reason. But the slavish attention (from actresses and fans alike) destroyed his marriage. Convinced that he would not have the strength to remain faithful, he told Faten that he wanted a divorce—while she was still young enough to remarry. They separated in 1965. He always described her as ‘the love of my life’ and often declared that no other woman ever won his heart. Faten was not so romantic or self-destructive — she married again, to a doctor,” writes Halliburton.

Premiere of Funny Girl in 1968

Moreover, travel restrictions imposed by President Nasser in the form of exit visas forced Sharif to start living in Europe year round for the sake of his career and the subsequent estrangement sealed the fate of the marriage. The couple eventually got amicably divorced in 1974 and remained on good terms till the end.

Sharif found himself at a crossroads in his life at this point, going from a family man to a committed bachelor living in European hotels for the rest of his life. “From the age of 31, I have lived in hotels,” he said. It was at this point that he was cast in Funny Girl opposite singing sensation Barbra Streisand in her first film role.

Barbra was born in the now hipster neighbourhood of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, in ‘42 to Emanuel Streisand a high school teacher who died when she was only 15 months old. Barbra had a painful, poverty stricken and traumatic childhood. Her mother Diana raised her and her older brother, Sheldon, by working as a school secretary. The were in such dire stratits financially that they had to move in with Barbra’s grandparents’ cramped three room apartment to make ends meet. The two children would crawl under a table to avoid being beaten by their irascible grandfather. It was a deprived childhood and Barbra played with a hot water bottle, pretending it was a doll. One summer when she was away at Jewish camp in ‘49, she returned to find out that her mother had married Louis Kind, a divorced used-car salesman. A half-sister, Rosalind, was born in ‘51.  Barbra was lonely and continuously taunted by her step father who called her “beast” and Rosalind “beauty” and the other children also rejected her because she was so plain looking, skinny, cross eyed with a big hooked nose and acne.

With Don Johnson

Barbra attended the Jewish Bais Yakov School, where she sang in the choir and then Erasmus Hall High School where she met her future collaborator, Neil Diamond. The awkward looking girl who the other kids said had “a big beak” and who described herself as “a real ugly kid” was never asked out for a date neither on New Year’s Eve nor to the prom, so to get attention and prove a point, she rebelliously dated a black boy. Additionally, “her voice got her attention when she sang on the stoop of the apartment building or in apartment hallways,” writes Caroline Howe for the Daily Mail.

“I hadda be great….I always knew I hadda be famous and rich – the best. Beautiful I’m not and never will be,” Neal Gabler quotes her in his biography Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity and Power. “I know if I had a father, I would probably be happily married and have two or three children,” she said.

While still in high school, Barbra would take the bus to Manhattan to study acting where, at the age of 15, she met Anita and Alan Miller of the Cherry Lane Theater in Greenwich Village. Wiley Barbra negotiated a deal with the couple, babysitting in exchange for acting lessons. After graduation, at only 16, she moved to Manhattan in ’60, working in menial jobs and sleeping on cots randomly at friends’ apartments. When hungry, she would go home for a home cooked meal. Her mother horrified by her daughter’s “gypsy-like lifestyle,” begged her to give up trying to get into show business, saying she didn’t have the looks for it. But she burnt with a desire to prove her mother wrong.  “My desires were strengthened by wanting to prove to my mother that I could be a star,” biographer Karen Swenson quotes her.

Tennis star Andre Agassi said, “So what if she’s twenty-eight years older? We’re simpatico, and the public outcry only adds spice to our connection…. Dating Barbra Streisand is like wearing Hot Lava”

Howe writes: “One theatre company owner said, ‘She’s very talented, but God, she’s so ugly. What are we going to do with her?’ She worked hard but was described as being voracious, wary, distrustful and self-interested.

“She didn’t have time for civility and never expressed gratitude even when someone cast her in a play,” said actor Barry Dennen. Dennen and his partner, both Jewish and gay, taught her how to dress, use makeup and eat with proper table manners. She learned how to cover up her insecurity on stage by studying the flamboyance of drag queens. More importantly, Dennen exposed Streisand to his vast record collection of chanteuses like Billie Holiday and Édith Piaf. He is responsible for developing her peculiar brand of mezzo soprano operatic voice combined with a pop singing style. Barbra realized that in order to achieve her dream of becoming an actress, she would first have to gain recognition being a singer, a formula Madonna adopted decades later.

Ladies’ man & legendary lothario

Holding the Venice Film Festival Career Golden Lion Award

When Omar Sharif
started losing consistently, at times more than $1 million in a single night, he stopped playing bridge, thinking he had dementia, but it turned out to be a worse degenerative disease, Alzheimer’s

According to biographer Christopher Nickens, Barbra began creating different emotional characters when performing, going from singing with a dramatic voice to a lighthearted one. She worked on her stage presence and started conversing with the audience between songs, ala Frank Sinatra, and even injecting humor into her performance. Her cabaret act became quite popular, especially with audiences at gay clubs who understood what it was to be different and identified with her. Barbra started being compared to widely adored Judy Garland. As Barbra became more famous, she dropped Dennen and never even acknowledged his help. Dennen said later that she had a habit of “cutting out of her life people who were not directly relevant to her success.”

Her first manager, Ted Rozar also said bitterly, “If you were of no value to her, that little switch went off in her head and she treated you like s**t.”

She worked upstate theatres in the summer and returned to New York to sing about being “the girl the guys never looked at her twice, the invisible woman.” She became a Broadway star playing “an outsized Jewish mieskeit” (ugly person) in ’62, making it there with the help of “the Jewish entertainment mafia.” The Barbra Streisand Album released in ’63 and is now a classic. Overnight she became the top-selling female vocalist in the U.S. The album became a Top 10 Gold Record and received two Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. At the time, she was the youngest artist to receive the honor. It was the turning point in her career “when she went from being a New York phenomenon to a performer with a national reputation.”

“When I’m good, when I’m pleased with my performance, I feel powerful. I forget about being an ugly duckling,” Barbra said.

She started living with actor Elliott Gould. He was twenty-three to her nineteen. “She scared me but I really dug her. I think I was the first person who ever did,” Gould said. They wed in ’63 and had a son together, Jason. But Gould’s career couldn’t keep up with her meteoric rise and they divorced in 1971 after a two-year trial separation. Gould loved Barbra unreservedly, but he thought he seemed desperate. “One side of Barbra needed men. The other was disdainful of men and competitive toward them,” later adding that she didn’t know how to love.

Additionally, she suffered from debilitating stage fright, which is why she avoided concerts and preferred Broadway performances, starring in Funny Girl for more than two years on Broadway and in ’66 at the Prince of Wales Theater, London. So successful were the runs that she made her big-screen debut in the film version of the play, starring as singer Fanny Brice, while Sharif plays her gambler husband Nicky Arnstein.

Sharif admitted later that he did not find Barbra at all attractive when he first met her, but her appeal soon overwhelmed him: “About a week from the moment I met her, I was madly in love with her. I thought she was the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen in my life…I found her physically beautiful, and I started lusting after this woman.”

Streisand said the romance of the film went to her head, “It’s hard to stop loving someone when the director yells cut. Fact and fiction got mixed up, and I think we both lost our heads for a while.”

The affair lasted for only four months, the duration of the filming. “I realised that I couldn’t have been in love, because it didn’t hurt when the relationship finished,” Sharif recalled.

A blog post in Retroculturati describes the affair: “Of his wives and lovers it was his affair with Barbra Streisand that would cause by far the biggest global stir.

“Starring alongside each other for the first time on the musical Funny Girl in 1967 in a production by Columbia Studios in which all of the investors were Jewish along with production staff that was pro-Israeli and a media heavily biased towards Israel, the two became romantically involved despite a huge protest from both of their home countries. Even though his own government banned his film the producers stuck by him and he completed the film. In June of 1967, the Israeli-Egyptian Six Day War broke out and in the midst of the huge political and military fall-out came a publicity still of the Egyptian Omar Sharif kissing the Jewish Barbra Streisand. This incensed governments, the public and worst of all perhaps, the wrath of Streisand’s Jewish mother!

“When Sharif met Streisand they were both married. Her marriage to fellow actor Elliot Gould was shaky and despite Streisand’s apparent appalling prima donna behaviour on set she and Sharif hit it off and began an affair, which lasted as long as the making of the movie. The backlash from the movie and their affair should not be underestimated. Streisand blames her not performing on stage for twenty seven years after this because of the stress at the time that caused her to forget the lines to three of her songs at a concert in front of 150,000 people in Central Park. She had been guaranteed a heavy police presence because of the furor of the movie and her affair but a surprise visit by Soviet politician Alexei Kosygin reduced the protection from three hundred officers to thirty making her feel extremely uncomfortable.

“The end of filming marked the end of the affair. Streisand later said that given the charged atmosphere of making the film it was difficult to put those feelings to one side once the day’s filming had ended. Sharif was always very complimentary about Streisand but soon got over the break-up by dating his next co-star, Catherine Deneuve followed by Barbara Bouchet after her semi-naked appearance in Playboy.”

Despite the tense political atmosphere, the film went on to become a huge hit. Barbra won the 1968 Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance and was named Star of the Year by the National Association of Theater Owners. Her perfectionism had paid off and the highly charged sexual tension between the stars and the ensuing controversy only fuelled the ticket sales.

Other mega hits in which Barbra has starred include The Way We Were, A Star is Born, Yentl based on a short story by Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer, which she also directed, as she did The Prince of Tides based on a Pat Conroy novel. From ‘69 to ‘80, she appeared in the Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll, the annual motion picture exhibitors poll for a total of 10 times, often as the only woman on the list. Streisand is the highest selling female recording artist of all time, and has won awards and acclaim in every medium that she’s worked in. She has recorded 50 studio albums with Columbia Records and has had No. 1 albums in each of the last four decades, the greatest longevity for any solo recording artist, and has sold a combined 250 million records worldwide. She is the only artist to have earned honors from all the major award institutions, including two Academy Awards, one Tony Award, five Emmys, 10 Grammys, 13 Golden Globes, a Cable ACE Award, the University of Georgia’s George Foster Peabody Award and the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2015, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and has been a staunch and vocal Democrat, as well as working for Jewish causes, fostering Jewish-Arab relations, equal rights for African Americans and HIV fundraising through her sporadic but  sold out concerts.

For a plain, indeed self proclaimed “ugly kid” she has had relationships with some of the world’s hottest men including pro football quarterback Joe Namath, countless leading men such as Ryan O’Neal, Warren Beatty, Kris Kristofferson, Liam Neeson, Don Johnson, news anchor Peter Jennings, Canadian PM Pierre Trudeau (father of PM Justin Trudeau) who wanted to make her Canada’s First Lady, and even tennis champion Andre Agassi. In his 2009 autobiography, Agassi writes: “We agree that we’re good for each other, and so what if she’s twenty-eight years older? We’re simpatico, and the public outcry only adds spice to our connection. It makes our friendship feel forbidden, taboo – another piece of my overall rebellion. Dating Barbra Streisand is like wearing Hot Lava.”

Christopher Andersen in his new book, Game of Crowns: Elizabeth, Camilla, Kate and the Throne, writes that Prince Charles as a young man had an immense crush on Barbra Streisand. Even at Cambridge University he had a poster of the star on the wall of his room. In 1974, Charles even visited the set of the movie Funny Girl where he spent 20 minutes with her. Flash forward 20 years, he was back in Los Angeles and they had a secret rendezvous at the Bel Air Hotel that no one knows about, except Diana, who knew all about it.

Quite a roster of lovers for an awkward girl with a large Jewish nose from Brooklyn that even her mother had difficulty loving! Whoever said persistence doesn’t pay off should take a page out of Barbra Streisand’s book.

Barbra said that 1980s onwards she wanted a break from showbiz and just wanted to live like a house wife and a real woman. She sought therapy for her demons and the havoc that her traumatic childhood had wreaked on her self image and romantic relationships. Then, one night while dining with friends at hotspot Mr. Chow in Beverly Hills in 1996, she met actor James Brolin (father of actor Josh Brolin), who is now 75 plus. They sat down and started talking. “After ten minutes I was a goner, and after two hours, I knew we’d get married someday,” Brolin said. Within two years, they were married. The couple are very happy and contentedly and live together in her Malibu dream estate that is made up of four buildings—the mill house, the barn, Grandma’s house and the main house—on three acres of property.

Sharif was not so lucky.  In his heyday, he indulged in a string of short lived romances with such beauties as Ingrid Bergman, Ava Gardener, Sophia Loren, Anouk Aimee, Catherine Deneuve, Julie Andrews and Tuesday Welds, among countless others. He was quite the lothario! However, he never remarried, stating that he never fell in love with another woman again after Faten.

Though “his striking good looks won him many admirers and lovers but towards the end of his life he lived alone with his gambling addiction. Whilst he had his own family, he chose not to settle in a relationship and always insisted it was through personal choice,” writes Halliburton.

 In the late 90s, Sharif began declining film offers, and sadly said that he had lost his “self-respect and dignity.” Sharif said about his Hollywood career, “It gave me glory, but it gave me loneliness also, and a lot of missing my own land, my own people and my own country.”

Christopher Stevens writes in an article for The Daily Mail: “The story of Egyptian actor Omar Sharif is perhaps the saddest, loneliest tale in all of movie history. But it has also been a life overflowing with wealth, adoration and affairs with the world’s most desirable women. Sharif squandered his good fortune — with divorce from the only woman he ever truly loved, an illegitimate child he refused to acknowledge, millions lost at the gaming tables, a glittering career abandoned and outbursts of violence….It always appeared as if he had the most enviable existence. After decades spent living alone in luxury hotels in Paris or London, staying up till 5 a.m. every night at the casino or the bar, the actor has now returned to Egypt. But this is no homecoming: he still lives in a hotel, at a Red Sea tourist resort. His life, it seems, is as rootless and lonely as ever.”

His most demanding mistress of all proved to be his gambling addiction that took hold of him. Stevens writes, gradually, “all Sharif cared about was pocketing fees for roles, however dire, so he could pursue his twin passions — playing bridge and breeding racehorses. ‘I don’t think I could live without a deck of cards in my hands,’ he declared, when asked on BBC Radio’s Desert Island Discs in 1978 what luxury he would need most as a castaway. But the cards and the casinos were bankrupting him.

“After losing £750,000 in one night at roulette, he was forced to sell his house in Paris, and announced: ‘I don’t own anything at all apart from a few clothes. I’m all alone and completely broke. Everything could have been so different if only I had found the right woman.’

“His gambling addiction, he admitted, was madness, but he could not stop. He blamed boredom, and the loneliness of living out of a suitcase. His agent became used to Sharif’s desperate calls, demanding work so that he could pay urgent debts. Often, the actor even had to reverse the call charges. But however many shoddy movies he made, he was always ‘one film behind my debts’.
He hated the roles. Though he could act in six languages — English, French, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and Greek — he had an accent in all of them, and so was always cast as a foreigner: a Sultan, a Spanish priest, a Mexican cowboy, or Genghis Khan. He doted on his son Tarek and adored his grandchildren, whose mockery of his dreadful films made him ditch acting in the mid-Nineties.

“Gambling was not so easy to renounce. After losing more than £20,000 at the Enghien-les-Bains casino in Paris in 2003, he head butted a policeman and was given a suspended prison sentence. It wasn’t the first time he had been threatened with jail for his temper: he was arrested in Greece for smashing up a restaurant. At a hotel car park in Beverly Hills, he brawled with an attendant, while four years ago he lashed out at a female fan who was badgering him for a photograph. But his womanising was over. He had quit a 100-a-day cigarette habit, too, following a heart attack in his hotel room in 1994: as he collapsed on the bed in Paris’s George V hotel, in agony, he was unable to think of anyone he could call for help.”

Halliburton writes, at one time, “he was one of the world’s top 50 bridge players – the Omar Sharif Bridge Circus played exhibition matches all over the world – and he once received a late-night invitation to play with the Shah of Iran and his wife.” Sharif even authored books on the subject, like Play Bridge With Omar Sharif (1990) and Omar Sharif Talks Bridge (2004). “Does he play now? ‘No,’ he says soberly. ‘I stopped six years ago when I stopped being good enough.’ (He says speaking of his violent incident.)  He has also cheerfully acknowledged that he has made a lot of films he wasn’t proud of to help finance his bridge habit. He’s had many strong friendships throughout his life, not least with Hosni Mubarak’s wife, Suzanne. ‘I thought it was right that Mubarak went,’ he says, ‘but I always found his wife very intelligent and interesting to talk to.’”

In the new millennium, Sharif’s career enjoyed a brief resurgence with Monsieur Ibrahim (2003), in which he portrays a Muslim shopkeeper who befriends a Jewish youth in ‘60s Paris for which he won France’s César Award. The same year, he received the Venice Film Festival’s Audience Award and the Career Golden Lion prize for Achievement in Film. The following year he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dubai International Film Festival.

“He still had a reputation as an insatiable lover but the truth, he said, was more mundane: usually, he preferred to go for a walk,” writes Stevens. “In 2012, he turned 80. He slipped into a melancholy routine: sleep till noon, bathe and walk the streets of Paris on his own. ‘I have no friends in Paris,’ he said last year. ‘I want someone to take me out in the evenings.’”

He spent his last days with Tarek and his two grandsons Omar, also an actor, and Karim. When Faten died, aged 83, Tarek was forced to admit that Sharif suffered not from dementia but Alzheimer’s. In his final years, in Egypt, Sharif remembered he was an actor, but could no longer distinguish one film from another. When he did remember he deprecatingly said that most of them were “rubbish.”

Omar Sharif followed his beloved Faten to the grave, dying of a heart attack less than six months after her in July 2015 at a hospital in Cairo, aged 83. Befittingly, his funeral was held at the Grand Mosque of Mushir Tantawi in Cairo, attended by family, friends and Egyptian actors. His casket was draped in the Egyptian flag on top of a black shroud, and he was laid to rest at the El-Sayeda Nafisa Cemetery.

Looking back on their whirlwind affair, Barbra said, “He was one hell of a guy.”

BEHIND THE CAMERA ON FUNNY GIRL

By Andrea Passafiume

For Turner Classic Movies (TCM)

William Wyler, Herbert Ross and the cast of Funny Girl rehearsed for weeks during the summer of 1967 at Columbia Studios in Hollywood. Almost immediately Omar Sharif found himself at the center of a controversy that nearly got him replaced in the film. In June the Israeli-Egyptian Six Day War broke out, which according to William Wyler, “sent jitters through Hollywood’s Jewish community.” As Omar Sharif elaborates in his 1976 autobiography, “All the investments in the production were Jewish. The atmosphere of the studio was pro-Israeli and my co-star was Jewish. Most of the newspapers backed Israel. And I was an Egyptian.”

Panic gripped the studio over the politics of the situation. Some people wanted Sharif removed from Funny Girl. Others thought that Sharif should issue a public statement condemning Egypt. Even Barbra Streisand’s mother made her feelings against Sharif known. “My daughter isn’t going to work with any Egyptian!” she said according to Sharif. Producer Ray Stark was ready to break Sharif’s contract when William Wyler, who was also Jewish, stepped in as the voice of reason. “We’re in America, the land of freedom,” he said according to Sharif, “and you’re ready to make yourselves guilty of the same things we’re against? Not hiring an actor because he’s Egyptian is outrageous. If Omar doesn’t make the film, I don’t make it either!” Sharif kept his job.

Just prior to shooting, Barbra Streisand took a short break in June to fly back East to perform her famous concert in New York’s Central Park. In July, Funny Girl was ready to roll. Everything was going smoothly until a publicity photo of Omar Sharif and Barbra Streisand kissing was released to the newspapers. With the emotions of the Six Day War still running high, the Egyptian press began a campaign to get Sharif’s citizenship revoked over the kiss. The Egyptian headline read: “Omar Kisses Barbra, Egypt Angry.” When asked to respond to the controversy, Barbra Streisand tried to make light of it. “Egypt angry!” she said. “You should hear what my Aunt Sarah said!”

The controversy eventually died down, but the chemistry between Streisand and Sharif did not. Though both were married at the time, the two began an affair while making Funny Girl that lasted for the duration of the production. “Barbra Streisand, who struck me as being ugly at first,” said Sharif, “gradually cast her spell over me. I fell madly in love with her talent and her personality. The feeling was mutual for four months – the time it took to shoot the picture.” With Streisand’s husband Elliott Gould back in New York to take an acting job, the two were free to share romantic evenings and weekends together. Though their relationship didn’t last, the affair would ultimately contribute to the breakup of Streisand’s already shaky marriage to Gould. William Wyler, who knew about the affair, tried to channel their real-life chemistry into their performances.

Those involved with Funny Girl said that she alienated with behavior that was often described as “controlling,” “rude” and “demanding.” There were reports that Streisand was chronically late and that she constantly kept everyone waiting. Some said that she would ask to re-shoot scenes that were already done and try to control every aspect of the production from the lighting design to what sort of shot was needed to who did her hair. “Here was this young whippersnapper,” said Assistant Director Jack Roe, “telling a very noted director how to do his job.” The majority of the extended cast and crew reportedly found her aloof, self-absorbed and inconsiderate. “I thought she was rude during the whole shoot,” said Roe. “I didn’t like the way she treated people, from Wyler and (cinematographer Harry) Stradling all the way to her personal maid, Gracie.” According to some, Harry Stradling threatened to walk off the picture unless Streisand stopped trying to dictate how he should photograph her. Screenwriter Isobel Lennart famously described working with Streisand as “a deflating ego-crushing experience.”

“With me she worked desperately hard on her part. She kept trying to improve herself; she worried about how she looked; she would come on the set in the morning and ask if we could do a scene over again. She was totally dedicated. She trusted me, and I trusted her.” Adding to that Wyler later said, “I’d much rather work with someone like Barbra, a perfectionist insisting on giving her best at all times and expecting it of everyone else, than a star who doesn’t give a hoot.”

I think I knew more about Funny Girl than Mr. Wyler. I had played it a thousand times and had read all the revisions of all the scripts…But once we started…well, it couldn’t have been a more creative relation…We tried different things and experimented and so forth. It was stimulating and fun and good things came out.” She added later, “He was never threatened by my ideas. After Funny Girl, I was thrown by any director who ever was threatened because Willie used to get a kick out of them. He’d use them, not use them, laugh at me, not laugh at me. I mean, he was a wonderful person to collaborate with.”

In fact, Wyler’s professional relationship with Barbra Streisand was such that he allowed her unprecedented access to his directing process, often letting her watch dailies with him to see how her performance was shaping up. Co-star Anne Francis found this aspect of the director-star relationship threatening. “Every day, Barbra would see the rushes,” said Francis, “and the next day my part was cut or something else was cut. Barbra ran the whole show…She had the Ziegfeld girls’ scenes changed – one day she told Wyler to move a girl standing next to her because she was too pretty, and the girl wound up in the background. Eventually, the Ziegfeld girls’ scenes were eliminated altogether.”

Challenging as she was, several on the set also agreed that many of Streisand’s instincts were good ones, and that she was often right about things. Her perfectionism, some believed, was merely the result of insecurity. If she was demanding of everyone around her, she was twice as demanding of herself. “She fusses over things,” said Wyler, “she’s terribly concerned about how she looks, with the photography, the camera, the makeup, the wardrobe, the way she moves, reads a line. She’d tell the cameraman that one of the lights was out – way up on the scaffold. If the light that was supposed to be on her was out, she saw it. She’s not easy, but she’s difficult in the best sense of the word – the same way I’m difficult.” Herbert Ross, who staged the film’s musical numbers, added to that. “We spent hours shooting her to test her in different lights, different make up, different hairdos,” he said. “I was with her the day she saw the first set of dailies. She was terrified – it was the first time she’d ever seen herself on film. Well, onscreen she looked a miracle. How could anyone have known that her skin was going to have that brilliant reflective surface that she was going to look radiant – that was just a wonderful plus.” Omar Sharif explained, “You have to understand, she’s a kid from Brooklyn…She didn’t just think she was plain – she thought she was ugly. So no wonder that insecurity…Those weren’t rumors that she caused trouble during the filming of Funny Girl. There was trouble – in wardrobe, in makeup, and so on. But when the whole film sinks or swims on you, you’re in trouble.”

For the last scene in the film where Fanny sings “My Man” after she has been told goodbye by Nicky Arnstein, William Wyler did something unusual. Normally, actors in musicals lip-synched to pre-recorded music for their singing scenes. Streisand had tried to do that for “My Man”, as she did with the other numbers in Funny Girl, but the scene, which was supposed to be emotional and heartbreaking, wasn’t working. He and Streisand decided to have her sing live in order for her to truly be in the moment. During the scene, Wyler had Omar Sharif stand behind a nearby curtain and talk to Streisand between takes. Their affair was ending as the Funny Girl shoot came to an end, and Wyler knew that Sharif’s presence would have an effect on her performance. “He wanted him around to help build up her sadness,” said Robert Swink. “They must’ve done at least ten takes. Willie shot the thing live and recorded it live. It was pretty emotional for her.”

Shooting wrapped on Funny Girl in the Fall of 1967. At the wrap party William Wyler gave Barbra Streisand a director’s megaphone, according to William Wyler’s 1973 authorized biography, “in mock recognition of her devotion to every aspect of filmmaking including directing.” Streisand gave Wyler an 18th century gold watch inscribed “TO MAKE UP FOR LOST TIME.” The two parted ways with a mutual respect. “I was very fortunate to have Willie as my first director,” said Streisand. “What was amazing is that when he showed me the first cut of the movie, I would say ninety-five percent of the moments I had picked in my head was in there. It was extraordinary. He just knew when it was right. He used the right moments all the time.”

Funny Girl premiered on September 19, 1968 at the Criterion Theater in New York. With everything that Barbra Streisand had riding on the film, she couldn’t have asked for a more smashing debut. Funny Girl was a huge hit – the highest grossing film of 1968 – and the reviews were unanimous that Barbra Streisand was a superstar. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actress. On April 14, 1969 Barbra Streisand took home the Oscar® for her performance, tying with Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter (1968). Taking the stage in her now infamously see-through black Arnold Scaasi outfit, Streisand looked at the Oscar® and said, “Hello, Gorgeous!” mimicking her famous first line in Funny Girl. Streisand was indeed a movie star.

By Mahlia Lone

The Muslim world is proud of such a moderate, poised and progressive couple as King Abdullah and Queen Rania of Jordan who did not anticipate ruling Jordan, as Abdullah was chosen by King Hussein for succession just a fortnight before his death. The royal couple has not let their sudden rise to power and prominence go to their heads and neither do they indulge in affectations or pretentions like many commoners. We can all learn from that. Additionally, King Abdullah is the only Jordanian monarch to date that has only married once. This is the story of the couple’s true love, enduring marriage and working partnership

Now known by friends and colleagues as “the epitome of modern royalty,” Rania al-Yassin was born on 31st August 1970 in Kuwait to average, middle class Palestinian parents Dr. Faisal Sedki al-Yassin, a paediatrician, and Ilham, a home-maker. Rania led “an anonymous and normal life” with brother Majid and sister Dina up till her marriage. The al-Yassins had family in the West Bank that they would frequently visit. She attended the New English School in Kuwait, then received a degree in Business Administration with straight As from the American University in Cairo, where Rania was also voted as the most beautiful student by her college newspaper. Though only 5’4” she received a modelling offer, but her parents were reluctant to trust the modelling agent. At the start of the 1991 Gulf War in 1991, her family, along with hundreds of thousands of other Palestinians, was forced to flee Kuwait as Palestinians were accused of supporting Saddam Hussein during the conflict. They relocated to Amman. Half of Jordan’s population is in fact of Palestinian descent. In Amman, she and 200 other applicants took a Citibank entry exam, which she topped and got the job. Just five months later, Rania took a different job marketing computers for Apple Inc. Around this time, she is reputed to have gotten a nose job and suddenly went from pretty to beautiful.

Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, born 30 January 1962, is King Hussein’s eldest son from his British-born second wife Princess Muna al-Hussein (nee Antoinette Avril Gardiner). Although Abdullah was named Crown Prince shortly after his birth, King Hussein took the title away from the three old toddler and bestowed it on his own brother, Prince Hassan bin Talal, for reasons of political stability in 1965. Oblivious to these changes, young Abdullah began his schooling at the Islamic Educational College in Amman and was sent first to St Edmund’s School, Hindhead, in England and then the U.S. to attend Eaglebrook School and Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts. He loved his time at the Deerfield Academy so much that decades later when he became King, he created the King’s Academy, a sister institution, in Jordan. He hired Deerfield Headmaster Eric Widmer to lead it, along with many other Deerfield staff.

In 1980, Abdullah attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was subsequently commissioned into the British Army as a Second Lieutenant, serving for a year as a troop commander in the 13th/18th Royal Hussars. In 1982, Abdullah enrolled at Pembroke College, Oxford University, for a one-year Special Studies course in Middle Eastern Affairs. He returned to Jordan after that and joined the Royal Jordanian Army, serving as an officer in the 40th Armored Brigade, and undergoing a parachuting and freefall course. In 1985, Abdullah attended the Armored Officer’s Advanced Course at Fort Knox, and in 1986, he was made a Captain and commander of a tank company in the 91st Armored Brigade. He also served with the Royal Jordanian Air Force in its Anti-Tank Wing, and was trained to fly Cobra attack helicopters. Finally, in 1987, Abdullah attended the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington D.C.

Prince Abdullah had a reputation for being a real ladies’ man. A general in Jordan’s Army, he was quite the daredevil, jumping out of planes, flying helicopters and driving fast cars, while Rania was a focused, bookish girl who wanted to have her own business. In January ’93, a new colleague took 22 year old Rania to a dinner party hosted by Prince Abdullah’s sister where their eyes met across a crowded room. Sparks flew and the connection was instant. “The minute Rania walked in, I knew it right there and then,” said Abdullah in a 2005 interview to People magazine. “It was love at first sight.”

“Rania was more circumspect. ‘I knew he was King Hussein’s son, and I was a bit wary of that,’” she said.

A whirlwind courtship began, the Prince took Rania on motorbike rides across the desert, waterskiing on the Red Sea and flying in hair-raising helicopter rides. Friends said that the soldier Prince seemed to bring Rania out of her shell and she seemed to tame his wild ways. In an interview to 60 Minutes, she said she was attracted to her husband’s sense of humor and down to earth nature despite him belonging to the Royal Hashemite family that can trace back its lineage 2000 years and has descended from the Prophet’s (PBUH) line.

On 24th January 1999 just two weeks before his death, King Husseing named Abdullah Crown Prince (heir to the throne).  Unlike in Europe where the law of primogeniture exists whereby a fiefdom, estate or kingdom is passed from father to son, in Jordan the monarch appoints his own heir apparent….This was an unexpected turn of events that nobody had foreseen. Abdullah and Rania had been living in an apartment gifted to them by the King on their wedding and no thought of the throne had crossed their mind

“I think he was quite interested, pursued it and it happened,” recalled Rania. She says her own commoner’s background allowed the romance to blossom naturally: “Nobody knew who I was, which was good.” King Hussein himself reportedly drove the 31 year old Prince to the home of Rania’s parents so he could propose just two months after their first meeting. With the King and her family looking on, she accepted. Three months later the pair married on June 10. “It was quick,” said Rania.

Their wedding was a glittering affair with royalty flying in from around the world to attend. Rania chose British designer Bruce Oldfield to make her two wedding gowns. Reportedly inspired from the embellishments on Syrian formal dresses exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Oldfield added heavy gold detailing to the gown, made a matching hair band and gloves that she wore to the ceremony. The 80s power suit style dress, reminiscent of the American TV show Dynasty, had exaggerated gold embroidered lapels, short sleeves, and a large belt. The skirt was voluminous and ended in a train at the back. A long veil covered her face during the Nikah ceremony. Her towering hairdo was so tall that she had difficulty getting in and out of the car. On top of that, she wore a crystal headband rather than a borrowed tiara. For the reception, Rania changed into a sleeveless v-neck, low back gown that was also embellished and made another elaborated up-do. The Prince wore his Army ceremonial uniform.

Content to serve in the Army, Abdullah assumed command of Jordan’s Special Forces the same year as his wedding and became a Major General in ’98. King Hussein had occupied the throne since his 21st birthday in ’53 for nearly half a century before dying of cancer in 1999. On 24th January that year just two weeks before his death, he named Abdullah Crown Prince (heir to the throne).  Unlike in Europe where the law of primogeniture exists whereby a fiefdom, estate or kingdom is passed from father to son, in Jordan the monarch appoints his own heir apparent. Until then, Hussein’s brother Prince Hassan had been next in line, but the latter’s Pakistani born wife Princess Sarwat (see older issue of GT: volume 12, issue 4, February 16th 2016) went about redecorating the Palace in anticipation of the King’s death while he lay in hospital in the U.S. much to the ailing monarch’s disgust. She also didn’t get along with the King’s American born wife Queen Noor, who wanted her son Prince Hamzah to eventually succeed to the throne. The King thereby asked Abdullah to name his half brother Prince Hamzah as his heir. This was an unexpected turn of events that nobody had foreseen. The couple had been living in an apartment gifted to them by King Hussein on their wedding and no thought of the throne had crossed their mind.

On 7th February 1999, upon the death of his father King Hussein, a few hours after the announcement of his father’s death, Abdullah went before an emergency session of the Jordanian National Assembly wearing a red-and-white keffiyeh and the reign of King Abdullah II began. Abdullah is not merely a figurehead as many European monarchs, but is the head of a constitutional monarchy, wielding substantial power. In 2016, he was chosen as the most influential Muslim in the world by Muslims Top 500 listing.

The accession was formally celebrated on June 9th ‘99. The new King and Queen rode through the streets of Amman in the same vintage limo that they drove in on their wedding day (and had also carried the King’s parents on their wedding day) to arrive at Raghadan Palace where the rest of the royal family was waiting. The King, resplendent in his ceremonial military uniform, reviewed a Guard of Honor outside, before greeting dignitaries in front of his throne. He awarded Rania the Al Hussein Ben Ali Medal, the most prestigious medal in Jordan. For the occasion, she wore an embellished gold gown by Elie Saab and Queen Alia’s (King Hussein’s third wife) Cartier tiara on top of a back combed up-do that had her towering over the diminutive King. Because half of Jordan’s population is of Palestinian descent, while the other half have descended from Bedouin tribes, the new couple was seen to consolidate the two cultures and unite the country, and the people rejoiced.

The new King made it his priority to embark the country on an aggressive economic liberalization program to stimulate the economy and raise the standard of living. He successfully increased foreign investment from the West and Persian Gulf countries, improved public-private partnerships, and established five free trade zones and Jordan’s flourishing ICT (Information Communications Technology) sector. Incidentally, the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, is married to Abdullah’s sister Haya bint Al Hussein. In the next decade, Jordan’s economic growth doubled to 6 per cent annually. King Abdullah II also negotiated a free trade agreement with the U.S., the first for an Arab country. Jordan’s foreign debt to GDP percentage fell from more than 210 per cent in 1990 to 83 per cent by the end of 2005, a substantial decrease that was described as an “extraordinary achievement” by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In 2008, Abdullah launched his Decent Housing for Decent Living campaign to provide housing with amenities like health, education and recreation for all citizens. However, despite his best efforts, Jordan is still heavily reliant on foreign aid.

The Queen in her turn has set up child abuse counseling centres under the Jordan River Foundation banner, worked for eradicating honor killings in the country, pushed for better school facilities and mandatory English classes as well as promoted micro-funds for small scale entrepreneurs. In 2000, in recognition of her commitment to the cause of children and youth, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) invited Queen Rania to join its Global Leadership Initiative and work alongside other world leaders, including former South African President Nelson Mandela, to improve the welfare of children. In 2007, she was named UNICEF’s first Eminent Advocate for Children and in  2009, she became Honorary Global Chair of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI). Moreover, she has also travelled the world to promote cross cultural and interfaith dialogue to foster greater understanding, tolerance and acceptance. She has used her status to foster understanding in the West about the Arab world, speaking at such high profile forums as the Jeddah Economic Forum, the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and the Skoll Foundation, UK. For this, she received the North-South Prize from the Council of Europe in 2009. Forbes magazine ranked her as one of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women in 2011.

At the coronation, Rania became the world’s youngest Queen at only 28. A smart, savvy woman, she quickly invested in herself, upping her style quotient to keep up with her high profile position. As a Princess, she looked very typical ‘Arab’, but as Queen she came into her own, toned down her makeup, opted for simple, youthful blow dried hair and a killer designer wardrobe and looks similar now in style to Queen Letizia of Spain. Queen Rania’s daytime style has transformed from business casual to elegant and proper. Following the ‘less is more’ sartorial philosophy, she looks like an affluent European professional mother. In the evenings, she dons only couture by designers, such as Giorgio Armani and Elie Saab with a bit of Hollywood flair thrown in. Her wardrobe has even gotten her a special spot in Vanity Fair magazine’s Top 10 Most Fashionable First Ladies list. Queen Rania was also ranked as the Most Beautiful Consort (or First Lady) by Harpers and Queen magazine in 2011. This helped her gain an audience in the West when she speaks as she is seen as being enlightened and modern. When Queen Rania re-wore her accesion gown ten years later to celebrate the anniversary, the change in her personal style was marked. Not only had she toned down the hair and makeup, but also scaled down the pomp and glitz. Instead of an order and tiara, she wore a crystal belt and pretty headband. She looked approachable, fresh and modern.

The royal couple said that they have worked to remain as grounded as monarchs can be. Abdullah and Rania have become ambassadors for a war torn and battle weary Middle East and advocates for peace and for promoting a progressive social and economic agenda. Her carefully crafted image reflects that. She has received criticism though for trying to fight poverty while wearing designer clothes and boasting a jet-set lifestyle. Queen Rania has stated that she is not opposed to women choosing to wear the hijab of their own volition as long as it is not compulsory and they have not been pressured by other orthodox Muslims. She said, “we should judge women according to what’s going on in their heads rather than what’s on top of their heads!”

Additionally, Rania is warm and connects well not only with Jordanians but all types of people the world over. The Queen was one on the first royals to use social media to connect with the people.“She has a natural ability to reach out,” said Abdullah in an interview, “We really work as a team. She covers areas to which I am unable to dedicate much time.”

Rania said she relies on her background to connect to common Jordanians. “I understand where they are coming from,” she said. “I am a product of this society and I can relate to them.”

“The King chose as a bride someone he considers an equal,” said Prince Zeid bin Raad, a childhood friend of Abdullah’s to a People magazine interveiwer. “He listens to her ideas. They feed each other’s intellectual curiosity. They’re a perfect match, two people that are very comfortable together, who think along the same wavelength.”

In an interview to Caroline Laurent for Elle magazine, Rania said, “The King has the executive and the political and economic power. I work mostly through civil society organizations. But, like in any partnership, in any marriage, you sit over dinner and you talk about your day, and he tells me what he has done and is doing, and sometimes I show him a speech that I have. We always say that we’re each other’s biggest fans and also biggest critics, which is a good partnership!”

She also spends plenty of quality time with her four children: Prince Hussein who has replaced Hamzah as Crown Prince and has just graduated from Georgetown University in the U.S., Princess Iman, who is currently studying at the same University and who travels with her mother to royal weddings and other high profile events, Princess Salma and Prince Hashem, who are both still in school. “I make it a point and find comfort in tucking them into bed at night, reading them their favourite bedtime stories and reciting verses from the Koran to them as they sleep,” she said in the same interview. Though she has a full time nanny and tutor for helping the kids with their homework, Rania likes to prepare simple meals for her children herself with the girls helping her, while Abdullah barbecues. Having given the old Palace to Queen Noor for her use, though she mostly lives abroad now, the couple have made a new Palace for themselves, which Rania has had done up in a contemporary style. The family favourite holiday destinations are London and the Jordanian resort of Aqaba, but her priorities are family and work. “It is a constant juggling act. Achieving that balance is about keeping some of the balls up in the air most of the time,” she said.

“We make sure to go to restaurants or go catch a movie somewhere and drive our own cars,’ said Rania, who often picks up her children from school driving a Mercedes SUV with a security detail trailing her. Safety issues are always a concern as the late King Hussein, who faced opposition for his moderate views, survived several assassination attempts but “it’s not something I think about on a day-to-day basis,” she said.

“I definitely make a point of having a relationship with my children, and building trust. Especially as they get older, it’s important that they feel that they can come back to me if they have any issues; I really want to have that bond, not lose it. For me, it’s a top priority, because even if I succeed in everything else, and I fail at raising my children, then I feel that I’ve failed, you know? So, at the end of the day, my children are my top priority, and that’s why I try to make it, as much as I can, a natural upbringing. For the most part, at least, I try to keep our home a sanctuary. And that’s where I can sort of make sure the environment is as normal as can be.

“I always say about the veil: when I choose something to wear, I realize that I’m not just dressing for myself, especially when I am abroad, I’m representing my country, I’m representing my people, so I have to always make sure that, I’m representing them the best way I possibly can. And also, sometimes I’m also representing a cause or I’m going for a particular purpose so I have to be dressed appropriately for that purpose. Whether I am going to visit a Bedouin village or whether I’m attending a speech and a conference in France you always have to think of the purpose.

“’We have the culture of protectiveness of women— that you always have to protect the women, and sometimes this leads to dependency, so we have to basically encourage our children, our girls especially, to be more confident, more courageous, you know, to take strides. We should not only encourage it, we should expect it from them. There’s a saying that ‘A ship in the harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.’ You have educated women, but they’re not working. You invest so much in educating them and you don’t reap the benefits of your investment,’” advises wise and intelligent Queen Rania. Who would not like to emulate this beautiful, stylish, intelligent, savvy and wonderful wife, mother and Queen!

By Mahlia Lone

The Shah had three wives, but only one compelling love: power 

The Rise and Fall of the Twentieth Century Pahlavi Dynasty of Iran

Iran’s Pahlavi dynasty was not an ancient royal house; it was specifically created by Great Britain after World War I, to halt Bolshevik Russia’s influence in Iran and to safeguard British interests in India. In fact, Reza Shah Pahlavi, the first Shah of Persia (as it was then known), was born in a village in 1878. His mother was a Muslim from Georgia, and his father was a Major in the 7th-Savadkuh Regiment of the Persian Army and fought in the Anglo Prussian War in 1856. Reza too became a soldier, like his father, and in 1921 was promoted by British General Ironside to the rank of Brigadier General to lead the Persian Cossack Brigade, thus becoming the last and only Persian commander of the brigade. His mission was to march on Tehran to prevent the Red Army that had already penetrated the countryside from taking over the weak Qajar dynasty’s government in Tehran. Reza became the Commander-in-Chief of the Persian Army after he was successful in wresting control of Tehran. By 1923, the British wanted Reza Shah to create a centralized power base in the country. He was thereby appointed Prime Minister by Persia’s Constituent Assembly in 1925 after amending the country’s 1906 Constitution and became the de facto ruler. Ahmed Shah Qajar, the previous ruler, fled the country and eventually died in exile. Impressed with Kemal Ataturk, Reza Shah was tempted to emulate him and declare the country a republic, but being dictatorial, he decided to establish a constitutional monarchy with the help of Shia clerics. On 15th of December that year, at the age of 47, he took his oath and became Iran’s first Pahlavi Shah. His son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was proclaimed the Crown Prince at Reza Shah’s coronation on 25th April 1926.

At the age of 11, Mohammad Reza had been sent to Switzerland to study at the Institut Le Rosey boarding school, becoming the first Iranian prince to be sent abroad for education. However, he returned to Iran after four years to attain his high school diploma, after which he attended Tehran’s military academy, and qualified as a pilot. On Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s suggestion to the Shah on a visit to Turkey, a strategic marriage was arranged between Mohammad Reza and Princess Fawzia, daughter of King Fuad I of Egypt and Nazli Sabri, sister of King Farouk I of Egypt. The marriage took place by proxy in 1939 at the Abdeen Palace in Cairo. Reza Shah did not even participate in the ceremony. It was a brief marriage that ended in divorce after Mohammad Raza ascended the throne, though the couple had a daughter together, Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi.

Father, Reza Shah Pahlavi

Son, a young Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi

Reza Shah spent the next 16 years modernizing his country, including replacing the name Persia with Iran. At the advent of World War II, the Shah declared Iran’s neutrality and the Allied powers were not pleased. They needed Iran as a transport corridor to Russia. Its geographical significance is illustrated by the name “The Bridge of Victory” later given to Iran by British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. The Shah felt that Britain and the Soviet Union had opportunistic and exploitative policies towards Iran. He cancelled the contract with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) to extract, refine and export Iran’s oil. After much negotiation a new contract was signed in 1933 that was also heavily tipped in APOC’s favour, barring Iran to sign a more lucrative contract with another company. On top of that, Germany had become Iran’s largest trading partner prior to WWII. Germany had even consented to sell Iran a steel mill that the country urgently needed. For these reasons, Britain and Soviet Union that had fought over the country less than two decades ago, now joined together to invade it in 1941. Iran’s army barely put up any resistance, leaving Reza Shah no choice but to accept a forced abdication in favour of his son, Mohammad Reza. He was issued a politely worded command by the British stating, “Would His Highness kindly abdicate in favour of his son, the heir to the throne? We have a high opinion of him and will ensure his position. But His Highness should not think there is any other solution.” And just like that again one Shah was summarily dismissed and replaced by another.

Princess Fawzia bint Fuad of Egypt Princess Shahnaz Pahlavi, Fawzia & Mohammad Reza’s only child

Love struck the new and by now divorced Shah. Beautiful, emerald eyed Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari was half German half Irani and the only daughter of Khalil Esfandiary, Iranian Ambassador to West Germany, and his wife, Eva Karl. Soraya had been brought up more as a German under the tutelage of her governess Frau Mantel, followed by a stint at a Swiss finishing school in Montreaux. While she was studying English in London at the age of 16 in 1948, she was befriended by the Shah’s younger sister Princess Shams. A relative of Soraya’s showed her picture to the Shah who became smitten with her. After his very first meeting with her, the Shah asked her father for her hand in marriage. Soon they were engaged and the Shah presented Soraya with a whopping 22.37 carat diamond ring. But his choice of a part Teutonic, liberal minded and Western educated bride was not popular with conservative Iranis. By her own admission in one of her two memoirs, she writes, “I was a dunce—I knew next to nothing of the geography, the legends of my country, nothing of its history, nothing of Muslim religion.”

As early as 1949, an assassination attempt was made on the new Shah that was attributed to the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party, resulting in the banning of that party. It is claimed that the attempt was actually made by a religious fundamentalist member of Fada’iyan-e Islam as the new Shah was considered too Western and too secular. The Shah’s reaction was to expand his constitutional powers and become even more powerful.

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Shah of Iran with his bride, Princess Soraya Esfandiary Bakhtiari

Princess Soraya wore an emerald and diamond parure and tiara to match her green eyes

The Shah married Soraya in 1951 at the Marble Palace that his father had had built. The wedding had been delayed because the bride had been ill from typhoid. She wore a Christian Dior Couture gown from his New Look collection. It had 37 yards of silver lamé studded all over with tens of thousands of pearls, 6,000 diamonds, and 20,000 marabou feathers. It weighed a staggering 44 pounds (20 kilograms). Because she was still weak, the bride had difficulty walking in the heavy dress. Seeing her totter, the thoughtful Shah ordered a lady-in-waiting to cut the petticoats and train to lighten her load. Additionally, the strapless dress had a fitted long sleeve waist length jacket and veil for the Nikkah ceremony. Because the wedding was in Februaury, a full-length white mink cape kept the bride warm in the non-heated palace and she secretly wore woolen socks on her feet, which were hidden by the voluminous skirt. In the evening, for the 2000 people reception, the jacket and veil came off and an emerald and diamond parure from the crown jewels that matched her green eyes added even more sparkle. 5 tonnes of orchids, tulips and carnations had been flown in from Netherlands to do up the palace and the entertainment included a Roman equestrian circus. The couple received such lavish wedding gifts as a mink coat and a desk set glittering with black diamonds sent by Soviet head Joseph Stalin, a Steuben glass Bowl of Legends sent by U.S. President and Mrs. Truman, and silver Georgian candlesticks from King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Though the new Queen headed Iran’s charity association, she was very much pampered and even had a pet seal, which she kept in the palace fountain. Just two years later, in 1953, the royal couple fled Tehran for Iraq and Italy after a failed revolution attempt in Iran, but they returned soon after.

The wedding ensemble consisted of a feathered and jewelled gown, fitted, long sleeved, waist length jacket and mink coat all by Christian Dior

Seven years into the marriage, the royal couple was faced with a dilemma. They had come to a crossroads due to Soraya’s inability to have children, a fact confirmed by American doctors. Even the famous American fertility expert Dr. William Masters wasn’t able to help them. Their joint consultation with him has been immortalized in an episode of the TV show Masters of Sex. Though he was very much in love with Soraya, the Shah desperately needed a male heir. Under the Persian constitution, if the Shah had no heir, then the royal line would end. He tried to convince her to let him take a second wife, but Soraya was adamant. In an interview to the New York Times Soraya said that she did not want “the sanctity of marriage” violated and decided that “she could not accept the idea of sharing her husband’s love with another woman.” She added it was with a heavy heart and because he had no choice that the Shah reluctantly divorced her.

At that time of their separation, Soraya issued a statement to the Iranian people from her parents’ home in Germany, stating, “Since His Imperial Majesty Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi has deemed it necessary that a successor to the throne must be of direct descent in the male line from generation to generation to generation, I will with my deepest regret in the interest of the future of the State and of the welfare of the people in accordance with the desire of His Majesty the Emperor sacrifice my own happiness, and I will declare my consent to a separation from His Imperial Majesty.”

Moments Photo courtesy LIFE magazine

On 21st March 1958, Iranian New Year’s Day, the Shah announced his divorce to the Iranian people in a TV and radio broadcasted speech that was broadcast, adding he would not remarry in haste. His voice shook with emotion, clearly he had been crying.

The Shah still loved his ex-wife; he granted Soraya the title Princess of Iran and made sure she received a monthly $7000 payment from the State of Iran. They continued to meet in Europe after their divorce, even though Sorarya had started a film career. She had always harboured a fantasy to be a film star. Despite taking acting lessons, she only managed to appear in two films. Through her new connections, she met the married Italian director Franco Indovina and they started a love affair. Unfortunately, this too ended prematurely with his tragic death in a plane crash only five years later.

Heart-broken Soraya relocated to Paris and bought an apartment on the posh and happening Avenue Montaigne, which sold at her death for $3 million. Soraya travelled, was fond of frequenting the Plaza Athenee Hotel near her home, attended parties thrown by the aristocratic feminist and woman of letters Edmee, Duchess de La Rochefoucauld, who kept a famous salon. She also made friends with her celebrity hair stylist Alexandre Zouari who introduced her to the young, glitzy crowd. But still lonely and depressed, she was called the “Princess with the sad eyes” by those who met her. In 1991, she wrote her second autobiography, Le Palais Des Solitudes (The Palace of Loneliness). She died in 2001 at the age of 69 in Paris. Her body was found by her cleaner.

Soraya appeared in two European films after her divorce from the Shah

Princess Soraya bequeathed her £50 million fortune, including her engagement ring, a 1958 Rolls Royce, countless furs and costly paintings that were all auctioned off to her younger brother and only sibling, Prince Bijan Esfandiary, but he too died only a week later at his home in Cologne. Since they had no living relatives and he had made no will, the entire fortune went to the German state government (and not Iran) where it was used to pay for street lighting, rubbish collection and other public amenities in North Rhine Westphalia where the Prince lived at the time of his death. Perhaps the Irani people were right when they claimed their Queen was more German than Irani.

Meanwhile in 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh had been elected Prime Minister of Iran; in a bold move, he immediately nationalised the country’s petroleum industry after getting a unanimous vote authorising this from the country’s Parliament. The industry had been controlled by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), APOC’s new name, which had been an extremely lucrative venture for the British and also gave them a lot of regional clout. Together the American CIA and British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) funded and led the covert Operation Ajax to depose Mosaddegh with the help of the Irani military, led by General Fazlollah Zahedi, who the CIA bribed with $1 million in cash. The Shah was in on the conspiracy and had agreed to dismiss the patriotic Mosaddegh as Prime Minister and replace him with a candidate backed by the British and Americans. As with subsequent American involvements in the country, the coup d’etat failed. The Shah with Soraya fled Tehran first to Baghdad and then Rome. However, a second coup attempt was successful, Mosaddegh was deposed, arrested and tried and the ‘merciful’ Shah commuted his sentence to three years followed by life in exile. Zahedi became the new puppet PM.

Attracted to European women, the two times divorced Shah’s eye next lit on the blonde Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy, daughter of the deposed Italian King Umberto II and Marie José of Belgium, known as the “May Queen” due to her brief month long tenure as Queen. But the Princess was a Roman Catholic. First meeting 19 year old Princess Maria during a skiing holiday in Switzerland in 1958, the Shah proposed shortly after. According to Dr. Abbas Milani and Amir Taheri, who wrote Mohammad Reza’s biography Majestic Failure, she accepted the proposal conditionally, depending on the consent of her father and the Pope. The Shah returned to Tehran to pave the way and clear any legal hurdles to the marriage, as the Iranian constitution at that time stated that King must take a Persian Muslim as wife. He hired a team of French genealogists to prove her distant Persian connection and asked the Princess to convert to Islam. First her father, though privately a homosexual but a conservative Roman Catholic where his daughter was concerned, withheld his consent. After the Shah offered to pay him handsomely for his consent, Umberto II left it up to the Pope who was asked to issue a special dispensation for the marriage. Pope John XXIII promptly vetoed the match. Horror of horrors, a marriage between a “Muslim sovereign and a Catholic princess,” was called “a grave danger” in an editorial in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano. Under the 1917 Code of Canon Law, a Roman Catholic was barred from marrying a divorced person on pains of excommunication and this threat was conveyed to the Princess. The Shah himself went to the Vatican in 1959, and the Pope plainly told him that he would sanction the marriage on the condition that Mohammed Shah convert to Catholicism. The engagement was mutually called off. Princess Maria went on to become a published historian and married a fellow Italian after more than a decade.

Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy

The Shah & Farah Diba on their wedding day Farah in a coat worn over a gown, designed by YSL for Dior

After this debacle, Princess Shahnaz stepped in to arrange a suitable marriage for her father, the Shah, so he could produce a male heir. In the Irani Embassy in Paris, a young Farah Diba was introduced to him in the summer of ‘59.

Farah was born in Tehran, the only child of Captain Sohrab Diba, of Irani-Azerbaijani descent, and his wife, Farideh Ghotbi. Captain Sohrab belonged to an affluent and noble family, his father had been the Persian Ambassador to the Russian Romanov Court. The Captain, a graduate of the prestigious French Military Academy at St. Cyr, served as an officer in the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces, but he died suddenly leaving his wife and daughter badly off financially, who were then forced to leave their large Tehran villa and move to the cramped apartment of Farideh’s brother. Farah Diba attended the Italian School in Tehran, then the French Jeanne d’Arc School and later the Lycée Razi. A sporty girl, she was the captain of her school’s basketball team. On a State scholarship, she went to Paris to studying architecture at the École Spéciale d’Architecture. The Shah frequently met State-sponsored students studying at Irani Embassies whenever he was travelling abroad. In February, at the Embassy in Paris, he met the pretty 21 year old Farah. Things moved fast. On her summer trip to Tehran, Farah was formally courted by the 40 year old Shah, as orchestrated by Princess Shahnaz, and within months an engagement was announced.

The marriage took place swiftly at the end of the year. The bride chose Yves Saint Laurent, then the designer for Dior, to make the all important wedding gown. The dress had a modest scoop neck, and matching coat. The ensemble had Persian motifs embellished in sequins, imitation pearls, and silver thread. The train had a fur-lined hem with blue sewn in the hem for good luck. Farah had her pick of the crown jewels. On her head rested the 2 kgs. (more than 4 lbs.) Noor-ol-Ain tiara that has the sixty carat pink Noor-ol-Ain (Eye of Light) diamond as the centrepiece. This had been cut from the Great Table Diamond, mined in Golcanda, India, and has a sister diamond, the 180 carat Darya-e-Noor (River of Light). The Golcanda diamond had been brought back to Persia by Nader Shah in1736 after he plundered Delhi as part of payment for him to return to Tehran. The Shah commissioned Harry Winston to design a tiara around the Noor-ol-Ain. The platinum tiara was set with 324 pink, yellow, and white diamonds, all larger than 14 carats. Today, this tiara and the Iranian crown jewels collection are on display at the National Treasury of Iran in the Central Bank in Tehran.

Within the year, Farah produced the much awaited male heir, Crown Prince Raza Pahlavi born in 1960, and the marriage was deemed a success, followed by Princess Farahnaz Pahlavi of Iran, Prince Ali Reza Pahlavi and Princess Leila Pahlavi of Iran. Initially, the Queen was engrossed in producing her children, but once that was accomplished she became much more actively involved in government affairs, particularly in women’s rights issues and cultural development.

Moments On a skiing holiday

Due to its massive oil production, Iran’s oil revenues soared during this time and the Shah became Middle East’s pre-eminent leader, referring to himself as the “Guardian” of the Persian Gulf. Autocratic, he famously said in 1961 “when Iranians learn to behave like Swedes, I will behave like the King of Sweden.”

A second assassination attempt was made on the Shah in 1965 when a soldier shot his way through the Marble Palace, but was killed before he could reach the royal quarters, after he had killed two civilian guards. According to former KGB officer Vladimir Kuzichkin, the Shah was also allegedly targeted for his pro-West stance by the Soviet Union, using a TV remote control detonated bomb hidden Volkswagen Beetle that failed to detonate.  Apparently, the Soviets made many failed assassination attempts on his life during the height of the Cold War. However, the Shah proved to be like the proverbial cat with nine lives.

26 years after his reign began, on 26th Ocotber 1967 the Shah, in an elaborate coronation ceremony,  took the ancient title of Shahnshah (Emperor), the Queen was crowned as the first Shahbano (the Empress) and Crown Prince Raza was designated as the successor officially. The reason the Shah gave for waiting so long for the coronation was because he said there was “no honour in being the Emperor of a poor country,” which in his opinion Iran had been up till that time. Rich heraldry was incorporated to symbolize the Pahlavi reign and ancient Persian heritage. The imperial crown image was included in every official state document and symbol, from the badges of the armed forces to paper money and coinage. The personal standards for the Shahnshah, Shahbanu and Crown Prince had a field of pale blue, the traditional colour of the Iranian Imperial Family, a central heraldic motif of the individual. The Imperial Iranian national flag was in the top left quadrant of each standard. The appropriate Imperial standard was flown beside the national flag when the individual was present in a building. All this pomp and circumstance was due to the fact that the Shah was very conscious of the fact that his father came up the ranks and was a “self made monarch.”

In the ‘60s, the Shah introduced a series of economic, social and political reforms, which were collectively known as the White Revolution. The goal was to transform Iran into a global power, modernize the country, nationalise certain industries, grant women suffrage, push for universal education and increase the national income. To win mass popularity and simultaneously curtail the power of ancient elite feudal families he expropriated large estates and gave them to more than four million small farmers. He also gave factory workers shares in the mills in which they worked. However, the wealthy land owners and middle income merchant class of the bazaars felt defrauded. Due to rampant corruption, much wealth found its way into the pockets of the extended royal family, their psychophants and government officials, not the poor.  The White Revolution was said to be “shoddily planned and haphazardly carried out,” its main aim to centralize power. The Shia clergy also resented Iran’s pro-Western stance and friendly relations with Israel.

A U.S. Embassy dispatch stated, “The Shah’s picture is everywhere. The beginning of all film showings in public theaters presents the Shah in various regal poses accompanied by the strains of the National Anthem….The monarch also actively extends his influence to all phases of social affairs…there is hardly any activity or vocation which the Shah or members of his family or his closest friends do not have a direct or at least a symbolic involvement.”

But the Shah still paid lip service to a two-party democratic process and said, “If I were a dictator rather than a constitutional monarch, then I might be tempted to sponsor a single dominant party such as Hitler organized.”

The Shah realized that to modernize his country, education was key. Starting from the ‘60s new elementary schools and literacy courses were set up in remote villages by the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces, which became known as the “Army of Knowledge.” By 1966 the school attendance of urban seven to fourteen year olds was estimated at 75 per cent and this further rose in the ‘70s. A government program provided free of charge meals to school children. Islamic theologians were formally established as clerics after passing special exams. A quarter of the scientists working in Iran’s nuclear program were women that had been sent abroad to study along with their male counterparts. The Armed Forces were also called on to build infrastructure projects throughout the country. Several steel, power and automobile plants, telecommunications and petrochemical facilities, as well as dams were established to expand the country’s industrial base. The Aryamehr University of Technology was founded to fuel the country’s technological prowess.

The Pahlavi clan in their Greenwich, Connecticut home in happier times

Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi with his wife & 3 daughters

Unfortunately, Iran’s labour market could not keep pace with the new graduates swelling the ranks of the labour force. In 1966, high school graduates had “a higher rate of unemployment than the uneducated.” The number of educated but unemployed and frustrated youth kept growing, providing manpower for the coming Revolution. To be fair, national rose dramatically in this period, but this is in part due to the soaring oil price in the ‘70s.

In ’71, the celebration of the anniversary of 2,500 years of continuous monarchy since the founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great took place to further consolidate the monarchy’s power. Controversially, the Irani calendar was changed from the hegira to the beginning of the Persian Empire, measured from Cyrus the Great’s coronation. The New York Times reported that $100 million was spent on the celebrations. A tent city covering 160 acres was erected next to the ancient ruins of Persepolis (ceremonial capital of ancient Persia), including three huge royal tents and fifty nine smaller ones arranged in a star-shaped design. French chefs from Maxim’s of Paris prepared breast of peacock entrees for royalty and dignitaries who flew in from the world over, which the guests ate off Limoges porcelain, washing it down with champagne in Baccarat crystal glasses. Interior design firm Maison Jansen, which had been contracted by U.S. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy to redecorate the White House, redecorated the buildings that received the dignitaries.

Princess Leila Pahlavi of Iran was a Valentino model Prince Ali Reza & Queen Farah Pahlavi at Leila’s funeral Farah Pahlavi is still sophisticated, elegant & well maintained

Next to this ostentatious and flamboyant display, the poverty in nearby villages stood out in stark contrast. University students went on strike in protest. The Shah kept the exorbitant cost of this extravagant celebration under wraps, which he justified by claiming it would bring in new investments to Iran, establish its importance and give the country more regional clout.

The Empress had also kept herself busy by focussing on culture and the arts. Though historically a culturally rich country, Iran of the ‘60s was empty of much of its heritage. Many of its artistic treasures lay in foreign museums and private collections. The Empress decided it was high time they were brought back. She secured permission and funds to buy back a wide selection of Iranian artifacts and contracted brother antique dealers Houshang and Mehdi Mahboubian, who helped her locate and attain these treasures from ‘72-78. Following the model of Britain’s National Trust, several national museums were founded to house these repatriated acquisitions, including the Negarestan Cultural Center, the Reza Abbasi Museum, the Khorramabad Museum housing the Lorestan bronzes, the National Carpet Gallery and the Abgineh Museum for Ceramics and Glassware. The Empress had a staff of 40 to assist her in the patronage of 24 educational, health and cultural organizations in all. She also carried out humanitarian work, travelling to far flung poor areas of Iran where she gained popularity in the early ’70s.

One legacy of the Empress, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art proved a conundrum for the anti-West Islamic Republic government that replaced the Shah’s regime. The Empress, using State funds, had shrewdly amassed a priceless Western Art collection during the depressed Art market of the ‘70s. Irani sculptor and Cultural Adviser to the Empress, Parviz Tanavoli said that the collection had been bought for “tens, not hundreds, of millions of dollars.” Approximately, 150 masterpieces of artists including works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, George Grosz, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, and Roy Lichtenstein were bought and displayed at the Museum. It became one of the most significant collections of Modern Art in the world, excluding Europe and the U.S. Today, the value of this collection is estimated at US$2.8 billion. After the ’79 Revolution, the collection lay for nearly two decades in the Museum’s storage vaults. After much public speculation about the fate of the priceless masterpieces, the collection was briefly displayed in an exhibition in Tehran in ’05.

The family now lives in Washington D.C.

 Under the Empress’ patronage, the  Shiraz Arts Festival for the performing arts was held every summer from 1967 until 1977, featuring live performances by both Iranian and Western artists performing  music, dance, drama and poetry. The festival program also showed films held symposia and debates in Shiraz, Persepolis and many other locations. The avant garde festival became increasing controversial and unpopular amongst conservative, orthodox Muslim Iranis.

By 1975, the Shah abandoned all pretense of even a two-party system of government. Only the Rastakhiz (Resurrection) State-sponsored political party was recognized, while the Communist Tudeh party was banned.  Political dissidents were jailed by the thousands. The Shah said, “We must straighten out Iranians’ ranks. To do so, we divide them into two categories: those who believe in Monarchy, the Constitution and the Six Bahman Revolution and those who don’t….A person who does not enter the new political party and does not believe in the three cardinal principles will have only two choices. He is either an individual who belongs to an illegal organization… in other words a traitor. Such an individual belongs to an Iranian prison, or if he desires he can leave the country tomorrow, without even paying exit fees; he can go anywhere he likes, because he is not Iranian, he has no nation, and his activities are illegal and punishable according to the law.”

The Shah’s words, “he has no nation” held an ominous tone and those words ironically applied to him in just a couple of years. Was it Karma at play?!

As resentment seethed at home, the Shah’s regime also lost the favour of the American President Jimmy Carter’s administration due to the former’s role in jacking up the oil price through his leading role in the Organization of the Oil Producing Countries (OPEC). To keep the national income high, the Shah was instrumental in fixing the high price of OPEC oil in the ‘70s that daily poured millions of dollars into the government’s coffers. The American public blamed their own government for failure to take charge of the situation, which turned to Saudi Arabia, its new ally. The American government and media started publicly criticizing Iran’s human rights records. Sensing that the Shah was being abandoned just as his father was before him, street demonstrations increased in size and frequency and the political situation snowballed out the government’s control.

In ’77, the first militant anti-Shah demonstration numbered only a few hundred after the death of Shia cleric and political opponent Ayotollah Ruhoallah Khomeini’s son Mostafa. By next year, well organized national strikes paralyzed the country. Then, on 8th September 1978, a day that is remembered as “Black Friday,” though Martial Law had been imposed, thousands had gathered in Tehran’s Jaleh Square for a religious demonstration. The soldiers opened fire on the unarmed demonstrators. This marked “the point of no return” for the regime. To calm the situation, in early October, the Shah allowed exiled political dissidents to return, but it was too little too late. In December, 6 to 9 million strong demonstrators, more than 10 per cent of the citizens, were marching on the streets. Public statues of the Pahlavis were being defaced and “every sign of the Pahlavi dynasty” was destroyed by the angry demonstrators. In February, pro-Khomeini revolutionary guerrilla and rebel soldiers had taken over the street fighting. The military stepped to the side and, on the evening of 11th February 1977, the Shah’s reign was over. The revolutionaries had won. The Iranian monarchy was formally abolished, and Iran was declared an Islamic Republic led by Khomeini, who took over the reins of power.

The Revolutionary government in Iran ordered the arrest (and later execution) of the Shah and the Shahbanu. The Shah and his family had already fled into exile to Egypt on 16th January 1979, as Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat and First Lady Jehan Al Sadat were personal friends. However, Iran started pressing for extradition. Over the next 14 months, to keep trouble at bay, one by one countries around the world shut their doors on the royal family. After Egypt, the Pahlavis stayed briefly in Morocco as guests of King Hassan II. In the article Little pain expected in exile for Shah published in The Spokesman Review, it was estimated that the Shah had a personal fortune of $1 billion. Despite this wealth, the family had nowhere to go.

The Pahlavis headed to the Caribbean, where they were granted temporary refuge in the Bahamas on Paradise Island, which the Empress recalled as the “darkest days in her life.” The Shah tried to buy the island for $425 million, but his offer was rejected. Next stop was South America. Mexico issued them a short visa and they moved into a rented villa in Cuernavaca near Mexico City. The stress took a toll and the Shah’s long-term illness of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system, rapidly got worse. They got permission to seek medical treatment in the U.S. Iranis became incensed with the U.S. government for harbouring the Shah and they attacked the American Embassy in Tehran. The bungled attempt by the U.S. to rescue the  Americans Embassy staff and citizens that were held hostage for 444 days became known as the Iran hostage crisis. Again, the Shah and his family became a liability to the host nation and were asked to leave. This time, they headed to Contadora Island, Panama.

Learning that, succumbing to Irani pressure, the Panamanian Government wanted to arrest the Shah and extradite him to Iran, Farah pleaded with Jehan Al Sadat to let them return to Egypt. There three months later on 27th July 1980, the Shah mercifully died. In just over a year he went from being a powerful monarch to a beaten and tired, old, sick man with nowhere to call home. He was buried at Al-Rifa’i Mosque, Cairo.

With that chapter closed President Sadat gave the widow the use of Koubbeh Palace in Cairo, but he too was assassinated in October 1981. President Ronald Reagan stepped in to rescue the family and informed them that they were welcome to the U.S. where they finally settled in the upscale town of Greenwich, Connecticut. You would think that the disgraced royals family’s trouble were finally at an end, but this was not to be.

It turned out that the younger two children had been so traumatized by the upheaval in their lives that they grew up to suffer acute depression and both committed suicide, one after another. Princess Leila was a very pretty girl, full of promise; she was a graduate of Brown University and worked as a model for Valentino. But she also had a dark, tortured side, suffering from anorexia nervosa as well as a drug addiction. She flitted aimlessly between Paris and Greenwhich,  anorexia wasting away her good looks. In 2001, she was found dead in a London hotel room from an overdose of tranquilizers and cocaine. She is buried in the Cimetière de Passy, Paris. Members of the French royal family and the late French President François Mitterrand’s nephew, Fredric attended her funeral along with her family.

Ali Reza was extremely close to his sister and her death had a profound effect on him. He had gotten his Bachelors from Princeton and Masters from Columbia, as well as was studying for his Phd at Harvard and had been called “one of the world’s most eligible princes.” With everything to live for, in January 2011, handsome and dapper Ali shot himself to death in his Boston apartment at the age of 44.

Abbas Milani, director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University, and author of a biography of the Shah, said the Pahlavis have a record of depression, “Sadly, the Shah did have a propensity for depression. In nearly every major profile of him prepared by the CIA, or British and American embassies, there is some allusion to this brooding, melancholy tendency. One report calls him ‘Hamlet-like.’ The other side of this tendency was the Shah’s love of speed, fast cars, and flying. The sad young man (Ali Reza) who killed himself apparently shared both qualities.”

The Pahlavi family in a more politic message on Reza Pahlavi’s website, wrote that Ali was “deeply disturbed by all the ills fallen upon his beloved homeland and struggled for years to overcome his sorrow.”

Ali’s final wishes were to be cremated and his ashes scattered on the Caspian Sea. Posthumously, seven months after his death, his daughter Iryana Leila