Vida Ghahremani ( fa, ویدا قهرمانى; 12 June 1936 – 1 June 2018) was an Iranian-born American film and stage actress, writer, and educator.

Early life and education

Vida Ghahremani was born 12 June 1936 in Tehran. She began acting in films as a teenager, under the mentorship and influence of

Khan Baba Motazedi Khan Baba Motazedi ( fa, خان‌بابا معتضدی) (1892– 1986) also known as Khan Baba Khan Motazedi, was an Iranian pioneer within the field of Iranian cinema and motion picture photography. He was the third cinematographer in the coun ...

. Her earliest work was in 1955 in Crossroad of Events (); followed by a 1958 film called Storm in Our Time (). She was known for the first romantic kiss to be portrayed in Iranian cinema, when she played opposite to Naser Malek Motiei in Crossroad of Events (1955). She was just a teenager around 16 or 17 years old during the filming of the first kiss. and as a result she was expelled from Shahdokht High School during her final year. After receiving her degree in

Early Childhood Development Early childhood development is the period of rapid physical, psychological and social growth and change that begins before birth and extends into early childhood. While early childhood is not well defined, one source asserts that the early years b ...

, she worked at

Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults Center for the Intellectual Development of Child and Adolescent (CIDCA, fa, کانون پرورش فکری کودک و نوجوان , ''Kānoon-e Parvaresh-e Fekri-e Koodakān va Nojavānān'', better known as Kanoon or Kānoon) is an Iranian i ...

, Tehran. In the 1960s, Ghahremani and her husband David Yeghiazarian opened the in Tehran, a music venue and coffeehouse; which became a source of material for her later writings and theater work. She was the mother of three children.

Career

She had lived in Canada for less than a decade, before moving to California. Ghahremani taught creative theatre and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

language in

Pleasanton, California Pleasanton is a city in Alameda County, California, United States. Located in the Amador Valley, it is a suburb in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. The population was 79,871 at the 2020 census. In 2005 and 2007, Pleasanton wa ...

and at the Berkeley Persian Center, where she had been an active member since its establishment in 1992. In 2008, Ghahremani published ''Aroussi-e Khaaleh'' ("Auntie’s Wedding"), a collection of autobiographic stories. Her second book, ''Safar-e Kaash'' ("A Trip to Kaash"), published in 2010, was an autobiographical story of adventures during her early years of marriage to David Yeghiazarian. Ghahremani received a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree in

Early Childhood Education Early childhood education (ECE), also known as nursery education, is a branch of education theory that relates to the teaching of children (formally and informally) from birth up to the age of eight. Traditionally, this is up to the equival ...

and held a diploma in Directing and Producing

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

. She was a member of the

Screen Actors Guild The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) was an American labor union which represented over 100,000 film and television principal and background performers worldwide. On March 30, 2012, the union leadership announced that the SAG membership voted to m ...

(SAG), the Gem and Mineral society. In 2007, she finished a film with director

Wayne Wang Wayne Wang (; born January 12, 1949) is a Hong Kong–American director, producer, and screenwriter. Considered a pioneer of Asian-American cinema, he was one of the first Chinese-American filmmakers to gain a major foothold in Hollywood ...

called ''A Thousand Years of Good Prayers,'' as supporting actress. Her daughter is Torange Yeghiazarian, an actress and one of the founding artistic directors of Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco. Ghahremani served as an artistic associate at Golden Thread Productions. In 2015, she produced and starred in the theater work ''Isfahan Blues'', in collaboration with Golden Thread Productions, Torange Yeghiazarian, L. Peter Callender, Nakissa Etemad, Laura Hope, and Marcus Shelby; it was inspired by the

Duke Ellington Orchestra Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was bas ...

’s 1963 tour in Iran. ''Isfahan Blues'' dealt with the theme of music as a gateway to power and creativity.

Filmography

References

External links

* 1936 births 2018 deaths People from Tehran Actresses from Tehran Iranian film actresses American stage actresses 20th-century Iranian actresses Actresses from Berkeley, California Iranian emigrants to the United States Iranian expatriates in the United States {{iran-actor-stub