Are there famous Iranian men?

November 15, 2006 5:14 PM

Are there any famous Iranian males who are well known among non-Iranians in the west (especially the USA)? Any kind of celebrity will do: actors, musicians, artists, authors, or other kinds of TV personalities like newscasters.

It occurred to me that there are lots of famous Iranian women- Shohreh Aghdashloo, Anousheh Ansari, Rudi Bakhtiar, Christiane Amanpour, Azar Nafisi, and Marjane Satrapi, just to name a few off the top of my head- but besides the author Reza Aslan, and actor Adrian Pasdar (who is half German), I could not think of a single Iranian male who might be well-known.

Bonus points if they don't play a terrorist on TV.

posted by BuddhaInABucket to grab bag (43 comments total)

Not born in Iran, but Omid Djalili is a start.
posted by randomination at 5:20 PM on November 15, 2006

Khosrow Vaziri the Iron Sheik.
posted by DieHipsterDie at 5:21 PM on November 15, 2006

director Abbas Kiarostami ("Taste of Cherry" etc.).
posted by scody at 5:22 PM on November 15, 2006

Oh yes, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
posted by DieHipsterDie at 5:24 PM on November 15, 2006

DieHipsterDie: Sure, and on that note Ahmadinejad, too. I'm not including political figures.

I dunno, I want sex symbols, rock stars, true artistes. Do those exist?
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 5:28 PM on November 15, 2006

He's not very famous in the US, but does Navíd Akhavan count?
posted by RichardP at 5:28 PM on November 15, 2006

Iran has more than a few of the world's greatest film directors. the aforementioned Kiarostami and then Jafar Panahi, Parviz Kimiavi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Masud Kimiay, Darius Mehrju

great cinematographers like Darius Khondji and Amir Mokri are Iranian
posted by matteo at 5:31 PM on November 15, 2006

and by the way, Kiarostami is considered a terrorist by the US government, so you won't see him in America soon
posted by matteo at 5:34 PM on November 15, 2006

Freddy Mercury
posted by k8t at 5:39 PM on November 15, 2006

A huge reach: Freddie Mercury.

Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara in the city of Stone Town on the African island of Zanzibar (at the time a British colony, now part of Tanzania). His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara, were Parsi-Zoroastrians from India.
posted by ibmcginty at 5:41 PM on November 15, 2006

sorry, k8t, shoulda re-previewed.
posted by ibmcginty at 5:42 PM on November 15, 2006

As much as I'd like to claim Freddie Mercury, I really doubt he counts.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 5:43 PM on November 15, 2006

OK, I know this is going to cause a fuss, but according to Iranians anyway... Alexander the Great. (Ducks under table to avoid flying mousaka)

Hello, Andre Agassi(an)? Sure he's Armenian-Iranian-American but, hey, that's enough in my father's eyes.
posted by Pollomacho at 5:49 PM on November 15, 2006

I believe that Bijan (the designer) is Iranian born. Beyond that, I can't think of anyone Iranian born.

There are quite a few with Iranian parents. Steve Jobs biological mother was Iranian. Andre Agassi's father is Iranian, Pierre Omidyar's parents are Iranian...
posted by Good Brain at 5:49 PM on November 15, 2006

Wow! No one's mentioned Cat Stevens yet! He went back to Iran after the Revolution and changed his name to Yusef Islam and is on the No-Fly list now.
posted by trinarian at 5:57 PM on November 15, 2006

I think Sufjan Stevens also might be of Iranian descent... Sufjan is a Persian name.
posted by trinarian at 5:58 PM on November 15, 2006

TJ Houshmandzadeh, the Cincinnati Bengals #2 WR, is the son of a native Iranian.
posted by Mick at 5:58 PM on November 15, 2006

List of Iranian Americans
List of Iranian actors
Category:Iranian actors
Category:Iranian film directors
Category:Iranian sportspeople
Category:Iranian people by occupation

I realize this doesn't exactly help with the "male" and "well known by Americans" parts, but it's a good starting place.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:02 PM on November 15, 2006

Sufjan Stevens is Armenian, and the name is arabic, not persian.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 6:02 PM on November 15, 2006

Wow! No one's mentioned Cat Stevens yet!

That's because he's not iranian. From his Wikipedia entry:

"Steven Georgiou was the third child of a Greek-Cypriot father (Stavros Georgiou) and a Swedish mother (Ingrid Wickman). The family lived above the restaurant that his parents operated on Shaftesbury Avenue..."
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:03 PM on November 15, 2006

Soccer player Khododad Azizi?

(Well, he's famous enough in Australia, for scoring the goal that kept the Socceroos out of the 1998 World Cup)
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:33 PM on November 15, 2006

Disgraced Israeli president Moshe Katsav (obviously not ethnically Persian, though).
posted by kickingtheground at 6:44 PM on November 15, 2006

In my experience, people of Iranian descent in the US prefer to be called "Persian" rather than "Iranian."

OK, I know this is going to cause a fuss, but according to Iranians anyway... Alexander the Great.

I've heard this claim before, but is there any substance to it?
posted by b1tr0t at 7:04 PM on November 15, 2006

Deep Dish are from Iran. Well known in US, Europe and all over the world. Darlings of the dance music press for years, then went even more billboard bound with a wishy washy sound.... Not my cup of tea but is for many.
posted by Kino at 7:07 PM on November 15, 2006

Omar Khayyam?
posted by dhruva at 7:10 PM on November 15, 2006

Rumi, who is supposedly the best-selling poet in America.
posted by I Am Not a Lobster at 7:19 PM on November 15, 2006

Although I guess his birthplace is now part of Afghanistan.
posted by I Am Not a Lobster at 7:20 PM on November 15, 2006

Andre Agassi, or at least his father, according to Wikipedia:

"Agassi is of Armenian-Iranian, and Assyrian ancestry.[3][4] His father, Emmanuel "Mike" Agassi (who represented Iran in boxing at the 1948 and 1952 Olympic Games before emigrating to the United States)..."
posted by bru at 7:30 PM on November 15, 2006

Not exactly famous in the west , but author Anne Tyler's husband Taghi Modaressi was Iranian.
posted by brujita at 9:32 PM on November 15, 2006

Professional poker players Antonio Esfandiari and Amir Vahidi are pretty well known. In poker circles, at least. They've both had major TV time.
posted by zanni at 9:49 PM on November 15, 2006

I've heard this claim before, but is there any substance to it?

They claim that they are who they are today because of him. It was his fusion of Macedonian and Achaemenid cultures and empires that formed the subsequent Selucid, Parthian and Sassanid empires. Really, that much is true, but that's not where the claims end.

They argue that Macedonia, as a Persian province could only have had a Persian governor as Ionians were not permitted to hold fiefdoms. That much too could be true, seems logical enough, but then come the conspiracy theeories. They believe that his lineage was altered by the Greeks to tie Alexander to the Greek heroes rather than to Persian royal line. The Persians would never have allowed an Ionian ruler and thus they set up their own line of succession, right down to the heirs Phillip and his son Alexander, the ones that revolted and overthrew them, later though the Greek writers gave them a Greek blood line.
posted by Pollomacho at 10:01 PM on November 15, 2006

Musician Nasser Ali Khan, as drawn by his descendant, cartoonist Marjane Satrapi, in "Chicken With Plums." She's on a major U.S. speaking tour right now, and "Chicken With Plums" is selling like hotcakes—so I'm guessing he'll become a more familiar name in the West soon. He's already well known in Iran.
posted by limeonaire at 10:29 PM on November 15, 2006

Sasha Baron Cohen
posted by Gnatcho at 11:38 PM on November 15, 2006

Omid Djalili jokes his parents are Iranian and he lived in Northern Ireland, so they spent most of their holidays in customs.
posted by handee at 2:12 AM on November 16, 2006

Darius Danesh - won UK pop idol a few years back.
posted by the cuban at 2:36 AM on November 16, 2006

not super-famous, though he deserves it: Ray Aghayan, Iranian (of Armenian descent) Oscar-nominated costume designer extraordinaire, for the likes of Dr. Dolittle, Whoopi Goldberg and Cher. His mom was couturière to the Shah; at fourteen he designed the mourning clothes for Queen Fawsia.
posted by progosk at 5:57 AM on November 16, 2006

Probably more well-known in Canada than the US, Jian Ghomeshi is of Persian decent, although he was born in London and raised in Toronto. He was in the band Moxy Früvous and has been a TV and radio host for the CBC.
posted by sarahnade at 10:00 AM on November 16, 2006

Thanks for posting this. After racking my brains, all I could come up with was Ruhollah Khomeini (Americans of a certain age know not only his name, but his face), and it made me sad, because his perception here in the USA isn't very positive.

I had known about Rumi, but had thought his proper name was Jalaluddin, which is apparently just an Anglic spelling of his first names Jalal ad-din.
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:51 PM on November 16, 2006

There are quite a few with Iranian parents. Steve Jobs biological mother was Iranian. Andre Agassi's father is Iranian, Pierre Omidyar's parents are Iranian...

No, Steve Jobs' biological mother was American, with a German last name (Schieble). You may be thinking of his biological father, but he was Syrian and had an Arabic name.
posted by Asparagirl at 12:51 AM on November 17, 2006

British-Iranian Cameron Alborzian was a successful model during the 90's, and appeared in Madonna's Express Yourself video.

And Amir Derakh of the band Orgy is apparently half Iranian.
posted by Devils Slide at 2:12 AM on November 17, 2006

Andre Agassi's dad was Iranian, but Armenian.
posted by k8t at 9:52 AM on November 18, 2006

I goofed on Cat Stevens. He's of Greek-Cypriot descent, but he did convert to Islam and moved to Iran... which makes him Iranian in a sense, I guess.
posted by trinarian at 7:22 AM on November 20, 2006

this doesn't qualify as well known, but I just discovered that the guy who invented hot pockets, Paul Merage, is Iranian. that's a worthy accomplishment, right?
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 9:57 PM on November 22, 2006