Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary (; 22 June 1932 – 25 October 2001) was the second wife of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Queen of Iran from 1951 to 1958. Their marriage suffered many pressures, particularly when it became clear that she was infertile. In March 1958, their divorce was announced. After a brief career as an actress, and a liaison with Italian film director Franco Indovina, Soraya lived with her brother in Paris until her death.
Early life and education
Soraya was the elder of two children and the only daughter of Khalil Esfandiary-Bakhtiary (1901–1983), a Bakhtiari nobleman and Iranian ambassador to West Germany in the 1950s, and his Russian-born German wife Eva Karl (1906–1994).
She was born in the English Missionary Hospital in Isfahan on 22 June 1932. She had one sibling, a younger brother, Bijan (1937–2001). Her family had long been involved in the Iranian government and diplomatic corps. An uncle of her father, Sardar Assad, was a leader in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of the early 20th century. Soraya was raised in Berlin and Isfahan, and educated in London and Switzerland.
Marriage
In 1948, Soraya was introduced to the recently divorced Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, by Forough Zafar Bakhtiari, a close relative of Soraya's, via a photograph taken by Goodarz Bakhtiary, in London, per Forough Zafar's request. At the time Soraya had completed high school at a Swiss finishing school and was studying the English language in London. They were soon engaged: the Shah gave her a 22.37 carat (4.474 g) diamond engagement ring.
Soraya married the Shah at Marble Palace, Tehran, on 12 February 1951. Originally the couple had planned to wed on 27 December 1950, but the ceremony was postponed due to the bride being ill.
Although the Shah announced that guests should donate money to a special charity for the Iranian poor, among the wedding gifts were a mink coat and a desk set with black diamonds sent by Joseph Stalin; a Steuben glass Bowl of Legends designed by Sidney Waugh and sent by President of the United States, Harry S. Truman and Mrs. Truman; and silver Georgian candlesticks from King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The 2,000 guests included Aga Khan III.
The ceremony was decorated with 1.5 tonnes of orchids, tulips and carnations, sent by plane from the Netherlands. Entertainment included an equestrian circus from Rome. The bride wore a silver lamé gown studded with pearls and trimmed with marabou stork feathers,Shah of Iran Wed in Palatial Rites, The New York Times, 13 February 1951, p. 14 designed for the occasion by Christian Dior. Of all the Shah's many women, it is generally believed that Soraya was the "true love" of his life as she was the one he loved the most.
Soraya later wrote about herself and Iran: "I was a dunce. I knew next to nothing of the geography, the legends of my country; nothing of its history, nothing of the Muslim religion".Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Macmillan, 2011 pp. 155-60. Soraya's upbringing had been entirely German and Catholic, which left her with a mixed identity, and made her the object of much distrust in Iran with Muslim clerics saying the Shah should not marry this "half-European girl" who was not raised a Muslim. Soraya wrote: "The feeling of being both Christian and Muslim, but at the same time of being neither one nor the other has engraved in my flesh two divergent poles between which my existence has unfolded. The one is methodically European, the other savagely Persian".
Queen of Iran Following the marriage, Soraya headed the family charity in Iran.
During the confrontation with Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh of the left-wing National Front, Mohammad Reza was often depressed, being in her words "somber and distressed" to the extent he even stopped playing poker with his friends, which had been one of his main passions.
In August 1953, Soraya followed the Shah when he fled to Rome, and complained the Iranian ambassador to Italy failed to arrange for a place for them to stay while the royal couple were constantly harassed by the paparazzi.Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Macmillan 2011, p. 188. On 19 August 1953, Soraya remembered how a glum Mohammad Reza was talking about moving to the United States when he received a telegram announcing that Mosaddegh had been overthrown, leading him to shout with joy.Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Macmillan 2011, p. 189.
After the 1953 coup overthrew Mosaddegh, the Shah's spirits picked up. One of Mohammad Reza and Soraya's favorite activities was masked balls, although Soraya complained the Shah always wore a lion costume (the symbol of royalty) while her attempts to appear as Madame de Pompadour were vetoed under grounds this was inappropriate for a queen, and she was forced to appear as Joan of Arc instead. Soraya always praised her husband when he displayed "European" personality traits while criticizing him for "Oriental" behavior.
Soraya described her time in Paris as "every day my heart was filled with sunshine. Life was light... it was wonderful to be able to go to the cinemas, to drink a glass of lemonade on the terrace of the brassie... a pleasure forbade." Soraya wrote about her joy at attending school in Europe, unlike the Iranian schools with "the grey uniform, the stove which smoked and polluted the classroom, lessons, homework, work to the point of exhaustion".
In October 1954, Mohammad Reza told Soraya he was concerned about the fact that she had not given him an heir and suggested that they visit the United States to seek the help of American fertility doctors.Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Macmillan, 2011 page 198 In 1954-55, the Imperial couple paid a lengthy visit to the United States, leaving on 5 December 1954. In New York, Soraya visited doctors who assured her that an inability to bear a child was due to the "shocks, upsets and vexations of the last two years", which reassured her, but in Boston, the doctors told her she was infertile and could never have children. Much of the length of their trip was due to the Shah's efforts to do something to console Soraya who took the news that she was infertile very badly. Unaware of what the doctors had revealed to Soraya, Newsweek sarcastically wrote "even the Shahanshah (King of Kings), Vice Regent of God, Shadow of the Almighty and Center of the Universe deserves a vacation....They [the imperial couple] have spent this winter in a private visit to the U.S...physical check-ups in New York hospitals, sight-seeing in San Francisco, dancing the mambo in Hollywood, skiing in Sun Valley, water-skiing in Miami Beach".
Soraya was fascinated with Hollywood and enjoyed meeting American film stars during her stay in Los Angeles.Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Macmillan, 2011 page 199. During her time in Los Angeles, Soraya met her favorite stars who were Grace Kelly, Lauren Bacall, Bob Hope, Esther Williams, and Humphrey Bogart. A photograph of Queen Soraya water-skiing in Miami while wearing a bikini became extremely controversial in Iran. Soraya was widely condemned for the immorality of wearing her swimsuit, which was not considered a proper dress for a Muslim, and the photo was banned in Iran in an attempt to silence the criticism of the ulama.
On 12 February 1955, the imperial couple left the United States for the United Kingdom on the famous liner, the Queen Mary.Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Macmillan, 2011 page 200 In London, Mohammad Reza and Soraya had dinner at Buckingham Palace with Queen Elizabeth II; Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; the Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill and the Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden. In the final part of their trip, the imperial couple visited Cologne where they stayed with Soraya's parents. The Shah's daughter by his first marriage, Princess Shahnaz, who was studying in Belgium, also went to Cologne to see her father, which caused a jealous Soraya to throw what was called an "embarrassing tantrum", demanding that her husband show love only to her, which finally led to the Shah to tell her to shut up. On 12 March 1955, the Shah and the Queen returned to Tehran, where they were pleased that, despite the fact it was raining, thousands of people had come out to welcome them back. The Shah, who disliked his prime minister, General Fazlollah Zahedi, was well pleased that Zahedi who was suffering from gout was visibly uncomfortable standing out in the rain to welcome him back at the Tehran airport.
Later in 1955, the Shah resumed the persecution of the Baháʼí Faith minority, razing their temples. The British diplomat Denis Wright protested to the Shah's minister Asadollah Alam, only to be told that Mohammad Reza had to do something to appease the ulama after the photograph of Soraya in a bikini appeared, which had enraged Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Borujerdi, a key ally of the Shah.
Divorce
Though the wedding took place during heavy snow, deemed a good omen, the imperial couple's marriage had disintegrated by early 1958 owing to Soraya's apparent infertility. The Shah's only child, his daughter Princess Shahnaz, had married Ardeshir Zahedi, the son of the former Prime Minister, General Fazlollah Zahedi, whom Mohammad Reza despised and had dismissed in 1955.Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Macmillan, 2011, pages 212-213 The Shah told Soraya that "a Zahedi could not continue the dynasty of the Pahlavis", and that she had to give him a son so the House of Pahlavi could continue.Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Macmillan, 2011 page 213 She had sought treatment in Switzerland and France, and in St. Louis with William Masters.
The Shah's domineering mother hated Soraya and was pressuring him to divorce her, telling him it was his duty to father a son to continue the House of Pahlavi. Mohammad Reza persuaded Soraya to leave Iran while he promised he would call the "Council of Wise Men" to change the constitution. Despite this promise, Soraya sensed her husband had turned against her, and before she left Iran one courtier remembered she had "systematically put her house in order".
She left Iran in February and eventually went to her parents' home in Cologne, Germany, where the Shah sent his wife's uncle, Sardar Assad in early March 1958, in a failed attempt to convince her to return to Iran. Soraya rejected the offer that she remain queen while the Shah would take a second wife, writing in her memoirs that Mohammad Reza was "fundamentally an Oriental", drawing an unfavorable contrast with the Duke of Windsor "who sacrificed his throne for love", writing that only "Orientals" sacrificed love for their thrones. On 5 March, Mohammad Reza phoned her to tell her she would have to accept him taking a second wife or else he would divorce her.Milani, Abbas The Shah, London: Macmillan, 2011 page 214 On 10 March, a council of advisers met with the Shah to discuss the situation of the troubled marriage and the lack of an heir. Four days later, it was announced that the imperial couple would divorce.
In a press statement issued by the Iranian government, it was announced that Soraya had agreed to the divorce while Soraya later claimed she had last heard from her husband on 5 March and she had not been informed beforehand. It was, the 25-year-old queen said, "a sacrifice of my own happiness"."Queen of Iran Accepts Divorce As Sacrifice", The New York Times, 14 March 1958, p. 4. She later told reporters that her husband had no choice but to divorce her."Soraya Arrives for U.S. Holiday", The New York Times, 23 April 1958, p. 35. The British Ambassador to Iran reported "Soraya was the Shah's only true love" and he was "a man at an emotional cross-roads", who was happy to be able to marry again while unable to "bring himself to face it" that he had just divorced Soraya.