The year was 1978. There were two famous Farahs in the world. The first pronounced her name as far-a. This means joy in Arabic. The second pronounced her name as fair-aah. The first was famous in the Middle East. Her name was Farah Diba. The second was famous in America. Her name was Farah Fawcett. There was one man who had sex with both Farahs. His name was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, otherwise known as the Shah of Iran.
The year was 1978. There were two famous Farahs in the world. The first pronounced her name as far-a. This means joy in Arabic. The second pronounced her name as fair-aah. The first was famous in the Middle East. Her name was Farah Diba. The second was famous in America. Her name was Farah Fawcett. There was one man who had sex with both Farahs. His name was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, otherwise known as the Shah of Iran.
Golestan Palace
The Shah had a thing for blondes. He didn’t marry them – his three wives, including the last, Farah Diba, were brunettes – but he clearly preferred blondes as his choice of affair. According to America's foremost Iranian specialist, Bill James, the Shah “went to Europe for sex. Particularly Switzerland. He loved going to Zurich and holing up in some extravagant hotel and having women come through his suite. The women were of a certain type – thin and tall and long legs and forever blonde. The Shah, they say, particularly devoured Swiss Air stewardesses. Don’t ask me why but Swiss Air was his favorite airline.”
Farah Fawcett was not a Swiss Air stewardess. According to unauthorized biographer Kitty Kelley in her book Farah Fantastic, she simply was “the most beautiful woman of her era. She was a feast for the eyes: the most perfect hair, gorgeous lips, a lovely rump. Her skin shimmered. But what made her delectable, what gave her sex appeal and made her indeed the American idol, was her cleavage. Farah Fawcett had the greatest cleavage in the history of cleavage. Her breasts weren’t bad, either.”
The Shah, who loved all things American but in particular situation comedies on television, first saw Farah Fawcett in “I Dream of Jeannie,” “Mayberry R.F.D.,” and “The Partridge Family.” On “The Partridge Family” Farah played a character called Pretty Girl. “That character name,” Kitty Kelley wrote in Farah Fantastic, “didn’t do justice to Farah. The character name should have been Fantasmagorical Girl.”
According to Melvin Mora, the Shah’s sympathetic biographer, the Shah “used to have his advance men, who had special titles like ‘the Shah’s Special Butler,’ scour Europe for Farah Fawcett look-alikes. Then he realized, why not go after the real thing?”
The Shah met Farah Fawcett during the filming of the movie Myra Breckinridge, based on the book by Gore Vidal. The Shah and the author were on friendly terms. Gore Vidal, it turns out, was more than happy to talk about the affair. “The spark was immediate,” Vidal reported. The Shah “came on the set. We shook hands. Farah walked by. If you were to ask the Shah about our conversation, I guarantee that he wouldn’t remember a word. I’d bet my reputation on it. All he could think about was Miss Swish, the glorious Farah.” Gore Vidal then glanced deviously out the window, which offered an unobstructed view of the Hollywood sign. “Farah could really shake her hips,” he concluded.
It is unclear how long the affair lasted. “It wasn’t your typical summer romance,” Kitty Kelley wrote in Farah Fantastic. “There were ups and downs, reconciliations and breakups. The relationship developed. I believe it lasted nearly six years. In Farah’s movie career, this encompassed the time from Mary Ann Pringle to Holly 13, or Myra Breckinridge to Logan’s Run.”
The Shah’s biographer, Melvin Mora, disagreed over the duration of the affair. In The Peacock Throne Revealed, Mora wrote, “His dalliance – for that’s what it was – with Farah F. was a whole lot shorter than his thing with Grace.” Grace Kelly, of course, was another one of the Shah’s blondes.
Kitty Kelley, when presented with this information, played it coy. Kitty Kelley’s next biography, entitled Kelley on Kelly, is the story of Grace Kelly’s life.
As for Farah Diba, she represented something totally different than Farah Fawcett. If the latter represented cleavage and desire, the former represented substance and style. “I didn’t want to be just a face,” Farah Diba told her biographer, the Iranian journalist Zeh Khofidian. “I wanted to be an important cog in the royal decision making apparatus. I wanted to be an adviser.”
Farah Diba met the Shah at a reception at the Iranian embassy in Paris in 1958. She was then a 21-year-old architecture student. The Shah was then a 39-year-old famous king coming off a divorce. They married within a year. According to the official Pahlavi dynasty record, Farah Diba’s first sexual experience occurred on her wedding night, December 20, 1959. She gave birth to Crown Prince Reza some nine months later.
Giving the king a son was only part of Farah Diba's legacy. According to Zeh Khofidian, Farah Diba “emerged as a warmhearted, rather cultured figure…. She was visibly interested in social programs… She managed to develop a reputation for compassion. All of this despite her husband. A remarkable achievement really.” Khofidian called Farah Diba, “A sort of Eleanor Roosevelt of her time and place.”
(Disclaimer: This is a faux history, a fiction based on fact. What's fact and what's fiction? I'll leave that up to your imagination.)
