[custom_adv] Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiary (22 June 1932 – 26 October 2001) was an actress, and the queen consort (Shahbanu) of homeland as the second wife of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.Soraya was the elder child and only daughter of Khalil Esfandiary-Bakhtiary (1901-1983), a Bakhtiary nobleman and Iranian ambassador to West Germany in the 1950s, and his German wife Eva Karl (1906-1994). [custom_adv] She was born in the English Missionary Hospital in Isfahan on 22 June 1932. She had one sibling, a younger brother, Bijan. Her family had long been involved in the persian government and diplomatic corps. An uncle, Sardar Assad, was a leader in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of the early 20th century. [custom_adv] Soraya was raised in Berlin and Isfahan, and educated in London and Switzerland.In 1948, Soraya was introduced to the recently divorced Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, by Forough Zafar Bakhtiary, a close relative of Soraya's, via a photograph taken by Goodarz Bakhtiary, in London, per Forough Zafar's request. [custom_adv] 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. [custom_adv] 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. [custom_adv] Although the Shah announced that guests should donate money to a special charity for the persian 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 U.S. President and Mrs. [custom_adv] 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. [custom_adv] The bride wore a silver lamé gown studded with pearls and trimmed with marabou stork feathers, 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. [custom_adv] Soraya later wrote about herself and homeland: "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". Soraya's upbringing had been entirely German and Catholic, which left her with a mixed identity, and made 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. [custom_adv] 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". [custom_adv] This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help improve this article by introducing citations to additional sources. Following the marriage, Soraya headed the charity association in homeland. [custom_adv] Soraya's marriage was troubled as Mohammad Reza's mother and sisters all saw her as a rival for his love just as they had with his first wife Princess Fawzia Fuad of Egypt, and continually snubbed and inflicted petty humiliations on her. Soraya hated Ernest Perron, the Shah's best friend and private secretary. [custom_adv] Soraya called Perron a "homosexual who detested women, all women" and who "spread poison around the palace as well as our own quarters". She wrote that Perron was a "cunning, perfidious and Machiavellian" man who "roused hatred, stirred gossip, reveled in every intrigue". [custom_adv] Much to her disgust, Mohammad Reza was "fascinated with this diabolical Swiss" who professed to be a "philosopher, poet, and a prophet"; the two men met every morning to discuss all the affairs of state in French as Perron was the man whose advice the Shah valued the most, and, as Soraya soon learned, other matters were discussed as well. [custom_adv] Much to her revulsion, Perron visited her and made a series of what she called very "lewd" remarks and vulgar questions about her sex life with the Shah, which led her to throw him out of the Marble Palace in her fury. [custom_adv] 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. [custom_adv] During her last years Soraya lived in Paris on 46 avenue Montaigne. She occasionally attended social events like the parties given by the Duchess de La Rochefoucauld. [custom_adv] Her friend and event organizer Massimo Gargia tried to cheer her up and make her meet young people. Soraya was a regular client of the hairdresser Alexandre Zouari. [custom_adv] She also enjoyed going to the bar and the lobby of the Hotel Plaza Athénée located opposite her apartment. She was often accompanied by her former lady-in-waiting and loyal friend Madame Chamrizad Firouzabadian. [custom_adv] Another friend was Parisian socialite, Lily Claire Sarran. In 1979, Soraya wrote to Mohammad Reza as he was dying of cancer in Panama, saying she still loved him and wanted to see him one last time. [custom_adv] Mohammad Reza was greatly moved by her letters, and wrote back to her saying he also still loved her and wanted to see her one last time as well, but said Empress Farah could not be present, which presented problems as she was constantly by the former Shah's bedside as he lay dying. [custom_adv] In 1980, it was agreed that Soraya would visit Mohammad Reza in Egypt, but he died before she could make the trip, which led Milani to comment that Mohammad Reza and Soraya were truly "star-crossed lovers". [custom_adv] Soraya did not communicate with the Shah's third wife, Farah, even when both lived in Paris.Soraya died on 26 October 2001 of undisclosed causes in her apartment in Paris, France; she was 69. [custom_adv] Upon learning of her death, her younger brother, Bijan, sadly commented, "After her, I don't have anyone to talk to"Bijan died one week later. [custom_adv] After her funeral at the American Cathedral in Paris on 6 November 2001 – which was attended by Princess Ashraf Pahlavi, Prince Gholam Reza Pahlavi, the Count and Countess of Paris, the Prince and Princess of Naples, Prince Michel of Orléans, and Princess Ira von Fürstenberg – she was buried in the Westfriedhof Quarter Nr 143, [custom_adv] in a cemetery in Munich, Germany, along with her parents and brother.Since her death, several women have come forward claiming to be her illegitimate daughter, reportedly born in 1962. [custom_adv] According to the Persian-language weekly Nimrooz none of the claims have been confirmed. The newspaper also published an article in 2001 which suggested, without proof, that Princess Soraya and her brother had been murdered. [custom_adv] Her belongings were sold at auction in Paris in 2002, for more than $8.3 million. Her Dior wedding dress fetched $1.2 million.Though her husband's title, shahanshah (King of Kings), is the equivalent of emperor, it was not until 1967 that a complementary feminine title, shahbanu or shahbanou (equivalent of empress), was created to designate the consort of a shah. [custom_adv] Farah Pahlavi was the only woman to have this title. Until then, wives of shahs (including Soraya) bore the title Malake (which is comparable with that of queen), though in the popular press they frequently and incorrectly were called "empress".
