Rosa Pahlavi

March 21, 1934 — March 27, 2024

Rosa Pahlavi Profile Photo

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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