Princess Rosa Pahlavi passed away peacefully in her sleep on March 27, 2024, while residing
in Stamford, Connecticut.
Rosa was born on March 21, 1934 in Mashad, Iran. She was the daughter of the late poet and
writer Mohammad Bozorgnia and Sedigheh Ghaemmaghami. She spent her childhood in
Tehran amongst a caring family that included two brothers, Hossein and Reza, and two half-
sisters, Mansoureh and Mehri.
Rosa’s independent streak was apparent at a young age, and as a teenager, she convinced her
parents to send her to London to finish her studies. During that time, she experienced life
abroad and developed a love for traveling that stayed with her for the rest of her life.
Upon her return to Tehran, Rosa met her soon-to-be husband, the late HIH Prince Ahmad Reza
Pahlavi. After a short engagement, they married on June 30, 1958 and decided to take a six-
month honeymoon visiting various countries around Europe before returning and taking up
residence in Tehran. The couple went on to have three children–Chahin, Chahrnaz, and
Parinaz. Her family was of utmost importance to Rosa, and she devoted herself to ensuring that
she raised happy children despite the upheaval that was to come their way down the road. In
the meantime, she enjoyed life in the royal court and attended many ceremonies and events
such as the Imperial Coronation and the 2,500 year anniversary of the Persian Empire.
Rosa was an incredibly accomplished person. A savvy and astute business woman, she was
involved in and negotiated a variety of business ventures in the industrial goods and real estate
sectors. In addition, she was also the Chairperson of the University of Kerman. In her free time,
she learned how to pilot an airplane, and enjoyed playing tennis, skiing, and horseback riding.
However, her life-long passion was art. She was a prolific artist who dabbled in and
experimented with a variety of art forms. In Tehran, she loved to spend her time creating oil
paintings in the greenhouse that was adjacent to her bedroom, surrounded by plants and her
pet parakeets. She also enjoyed creating sculptures. An unconventional thinker, she created a
one-of-a-kind life-size sculpture of a person using car parts. Later in life, she produced hundreds
of stunning watercolor paintings. There were periods when she even created original furniture,
as well as designed and produced jewelry.
As life usually does, it threw a wrench into Rosa’s plans, and that was the Iranian Revolution! In
1978, the family moved to France where they resided for several years. During this upheaval,
Rosa lost her husband to cancer in 1981 at age 54 when she was 47. This ultimately led to her
and her children moving to the United States. She spent the next decades of her life focusing on
her children, traveling around the world, and creating art. The arrival of grandchildren brought
new joy to Rosa’s life. She developed strong and loving relationships with each of her nine
grandchildren. As young children, they all loved to visit “Mamama” and their faces lit up as soon
as they saw her. One would never guess her age as Rosa chased her little grandkids around
the house. These solid bonds and love continued over the decades as the grandchildren grew.
Rosa Pahlavi will be immensely missed by her family: her son Chahin Pahlavi and wife Pamela
Pahlavi of Garden City, NY and her grandchildren Alexander, Zachary, Gregory, and Zara; her
daughter Chahrnaz Pahlavi of Waterbury, CT and her granddaughters Natasha and Sara; and
her daughter Parinaz Pahlavi and husband Brian Shipman of Greenwich, CT and her
grandchildren Cameron, Persia, and Soraya.
The family would like to thank the staff and nurses at Brighton Gardens of Stamford for taking
such loving care of Rosa the past few years. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the
Alzheimer's Association in Rosa’s name.
To order memorial trees or send flowers to the family in memory of Rosa Pahlavi, please visit our flower store.
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