Forouzan

Actor

Bandar-e Anzali, Iran

August 26, 1937

Biography

Forouzan (also spelled Foroozan) was born in Bandar-e Anzali, Iran. Her real name was Parvin Kheirbakhsh. She started her career by dubbing films. Her first movie was Sahel-e Entezar. She acted in many popular Iranian films and also worked with visionary directors of the Mowj-e Now, such as Dariush Mehrjui (Dayere-ye Mina) and Ali Hatami (Baba Shamal). She started her cinematic career as a voice-over actress. In 1964 she starred in Siamak Yasemi's Sahele Entezar, but it was Ganje Qarun, another film by Yasemi, that made her very famous. She co-starred in this film with Fardin. After Ganj-e Qarun Fardin and Forouzan made a golden cinematic couple and co-starred in some of the highest-grossing films of the era, known as Persian Films or Film Farsi (in Persian: Filme Farsi). Persian Film was the popular genre of movies produced in Iran before the Iranian revolution of 1979. Siamak Yasemi, Iraj Ghaderi, Shapur Gharib and Fereydun Goleh were some of the other famous directors that she collaborated with. After the 1979 revolution Forouzan was banned from playing in movies and grew more and more isolated. She rarely conducted interviews and died on 24 January 2016 in Tehran. After Forouzan's death, Persian-language websites and forums dedicated posts and articles in her memory. Her popularity remained intact despite not having acted in a new film since 1978