She was the twin sister of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and daughter of Reza Shah. In the early 1930s she, along with her mother Tadj ol-Molouk and older sister Shams, were among the first significant Iranian women to cease wearing the traditional veil. She was not permitted to attend a university and married in 1937 at the age of 18 to Mirza Khan Gazam, whose family were allies to her father. Serving as a palace advisor, she was considered the “power behind her brother” and allegedly was instrumental in the 1953 coup that put her twin brother back on the throne. She was a strong supporter of women’s rights in not only Iran, but around the world.
After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, she lived in exile in New York, Paris, and Monte Carlo and was the oldest living member of the Pahlavi family at the time of her passing. Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari Queen Soraya Esfandiary-Bakhtiari was wife of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi,the late Shah of Iran.They married on 12 February 1951. In Paris she was became real socialite.Soraya died on 26 october 2001.
