Hamid Reza Pahlavi

Hamid Reza Pahlavi was born on 4 July 1932. He was the youngest son of Reza Shah and his fourth and favourite wife, Esmat Dowlatshahi. His parents married in 1923. His mother was a member of the Qajar dynasty. Of both his parents he had four siblings: Abdul Reza Pahlavi, Ahmad Reza Pahlavi, Mahmoud Reza Pahlavi and Fatemeh Pahlavi. They lived in the Marble Palace in Tehran with their parents.

He studied in the United States and in Tehran. While attending high school in Washington, D.C., (the Honeywell Foundation) in September 1947, he skipped school to take a train to Hollywood, California, to visit his brother, Mahmoud, who was studying at UCLA. He stated that he did so because his high school did not have girl students and he was homesick. He had acted similarly three months previously, leaving his high school in Newport, Rhode Island, to travel to Paris and Provincetown.

Hamid Reza married three times and had four children. He first married Minou Dowlatshahi in Tehran in March 1951. Of this marriage he got a daughter, born 1953. In 1959 he married Homa Khameneh, by whom he had two children. In 1974 Hamid Reza married Houri Khameneh, by whom he had one child, born 1975.

One of his sons lived in the United Kingdom for a while, but he was brought by Shah Mohammad Reza to Iran and attended the military school in Tehran.

Due to his scandalous lifestyle, Hamid Reza's title of prince was removed and the Shah banned him from the court. In the 1960s he became known as a leading figure in opium trafficking business.

 

After the Iranian Revolution that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Hamid Reza stayed in Iran and changed his name to FaFar Islami. However, he was arrested as a vagrant in 1986. He received a sentence of ten years in Evin prison on drug charges. In an interview held in prison in 1989, Pahlavi however stated that he was sentenced for his family connections. He also said that he was not treated badly in prison and "things could be worse". Inmates in his prison cell included a former general and senior officials of the Shah's regime. In July 1992, while serving his sentence, he died of a heart attack.