Mehrdad Pahlbod

Mehrdad Pahlbod (Persian: مهرداد پهلبد; 16 March 1917 – 9 August 2018), born as Ezatollah Minbashian (Persian: عزت‌الله مین‌باشیان), was an Iranian politician who served as the first culture minister of Iran from 1964 until the 1978.[1][2]

Mehrdad Pahlbod
BornEzatollah Minbashian
16 March 1917
Tehran, Persia
Died9 August 2018(2018-08-09) (aged 101)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1945; died 1996)​
IssueShahbaz Pahlbod
Shahyar Pahlbod
Shahrazad Pahlbod
FatherNasru'llah Minbashian
ReligionCatholic Church
Personal details
Alma materFirooz Bahram High School
University of Lausanne

Life

Pahlbod was born in Tehran into the musical family of Minbashian. His father was Colonel Nasru'llah Minbashian, Imperial Iranian Army Band Corps. His relative Gholam-Hossein Minbashian, a professional violinist, was the conductor of Tehran City Hall Symphony Orchestra (later Tehran Symphony Orchestra) and the director of Tehran Conservatory of Music for years. Pahlbod studied architecture in Switzerland and in the late 1950s became the vice president of the Persian Fine Arts Administration in Tehran; an organisation which later became the Iranian Ministry of Culture.

He was a violinist and music teacher, Director-General of the Department of Fine Arts in 1956, Deputy in the Ministry of Education until 1961 and Minister for Culture and the Arts between 1964 and 1978, and received the Order of Homayoun 1st Class, the Order of the Crown 4th Class, the Coron Medal in Gold in 1967 and the 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire Medal in Gold on 15 October 1971, was Knight of Grand-Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic of Italy on 15 December 1974, etc.

Mehrdad Pahlbod was also the second husband of Princess Shams Pahlavi. The couple secretly converted to Catholic Christianity from Shia Islam in the 1950s in Egypt.[3][4][5]

In the years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Pahlbod lived in exile in Los Angeles where he died on 9 August 2018 at the age of 101.[2]

References
  1. "Oral History Interview: Mehrdad Pahlbod". FIS. Retrieved 2018-08-09.
  2. "مهرداد پهلبد، وزیر فرهنگ و هنر دوران پهلوی و داماد رضا شاه، در لُس آنجلس درگذشت". fa.rfi.fr (in Persian). 2018-08-10.
  3. ʿAlam, Asad Allāh (14 August 1991). The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1969-1977. I. B. Tauris. ISBN 9781850433408. Retrieved 14 August 2018 – via Google Books.
  4. Sachs, Joel (11 July 2012). Henry Cowell: A Man Made of Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-997683-6. Retrieved 14 August 2018 – via Google Books.
  5. "مؤسسه مطالعات تاريخ معاصر ايران IICHS". www.iichs.org. Retrieved 14 August 2018.


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