Global and Iranian history are both closely intertwined with the lives and destinies of prominent figures. Every one of them has laid a brick on history’s wall, sometimes paying the price with their lives, men and women alike. Women have been especially influential in the past 200 years, writing much of contemporary Iranian history.
In Iran, women have increased public awareness about gender discrimination, raised the profile of and improved women’s rights, fought for literacy among women, and promoted the social status of women by counteracting religious pressures, participating in scientific projects, being involved in politics, influencing music, cinema... And so the list goes on.
This series aims to celebrate these renowned and respected Iranian women. They are women who represent the millions of women that influence their families and societies on a daily basis. Not all of the people profiled in the series are endorsed by IranWire, but their influence and impact cannot be overlooked. The articles are biographical stories that consider the lives of influential women in Iran.
IranWire readers are invited to send in suggestions for how we might expand the series. Contact IranWire via email ([email protected]), on Facebook, or by tweeting us.
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Rouhangiz (Sedigheh) Saminejad was the first Iranian woman to star in an Iranian film with sound. After appearing in the film, entitled Lor Girl, in 1932, she starred in just one other film until her traditional family pressured her into giving up acting. Men regularly harassed her on a frequent basis because of her acting, and she spent the last three decades of her life on her own, until she died aged 80.
Saminejad was born in June 1916 in the historic Iranian city of Bam, in the southeastern province of Kerman. Shortly after beginning high school, she married Reza Damavandi who worked at the Imperial Film Company in Mumbai, India. Ardeshir Irani, a Zoroastrian from Iran, owned the company. She later moved to India with her husband.
In the early 1930s, Abdolhossein Sepanta, an Iranian poet, writer and journalist, traveled to India to study the influence of ancient Iranian culture on the country. While in in Mumbai (then Bombay), he and Ardeshir Irani teamed up to produce the first ever Persian-language movie with sound. At the time, Iran had no facilities with which to produce films.
Sepanta wrote both the screenplay for Lor Girl and played the leading role, while Ardeshir Irani directed it. The film required someone who spoke Persian, which was difficult due to the cultural and religious context of the times. But when Sepanta met Rouhangiz Saminejad, he quickly decided that she was the right person for the job even though she was not a professional actress. He persuaded her to accept the role.
The movie took seven months to make and was screened in Iran in 1934. It was a hit and audiences quickly forgave the fact that Saminejad’s accent did not match that of an ethnic Lor girl from southeastern Iran.
The film, which primarily belongs to the adventure genre, also had political undertones. Set in a chaotic and lawless post-WWI Iran, it implicitly supported Iran’s first-ever Pahlavi king, Reza Shah, who at the time was violently imposing order in Iran.
Saminejad's second film, Sepanta, was based on a famous Iranian romance story. When she finished making that film, she and Reza Damavandi divorced. She later married Nosratollah Mohtasham, an actor who had also starred in the movie. However, the marriage did not last long. When Mohtasham came back to Iran from India in 1947, he divorced her in absentia.
After 18 years abroad, Saminejad at last went back to Iran to continue pursuing acting. But her family put obstacles in her way. She was sexually assaulted in public more than once, and religious zealots threw bottles and stones at her.
This forced her to change her career path; she ended up studying nursing before going on to work as a nurse for the country’s Health Ministry. After this, she married a third time, but this too ended in divorce. Rouhangiz Saminejad died on April 30, 1997.
Also in the series:
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Jinous Nemat Mahmoudi
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Simin Behbahani
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Forough Farrokhzad
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Parvin Etesami
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Farokhru Parsa
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Jamileh Sadeghi
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Fatemeh Daneshvar
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Fatemeh Moghimi
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Googoosh
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Sima Bina
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Tahereh Qurratu'l-Ayn
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Farah Pahlavi
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Pardis Sabeti
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Mahsa Vahdat
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Maryam Mirzakhani
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Fatemeh Karroubi
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Shirin Ebadi
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Mehrangiz Kar
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Narges Mohammadi
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Zahra Rahnavard
50 Iranian Women You Should Known: Leila Hatami
50 Iranian Women You Should Known: Golshifteh Farahani
50 Iranian Women you Should Know: Susan Taslimi
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