My Life in Focus

by Gianni Bozzacchi,Joey Tayler

  As I’ve said, Pierluigi was many things, but he wasn’t stupid. Everyone who knew him kept telling him he was crazy to keep fighting me. The only way he could save his agency was to offer me a deal, a better deal than the previous one. When we finally sat down face-to-face, I told him I felt in his debt, but if he wanted me to continue working for his agency, he would have to change my status as well as the way he handled things. He would have to give me—and all the other photographers who worked for him—full credit for the photos we took.

  Pierluigi replied that it was none of my business who took credit for what. Unfortunately for him, my sudden fame had also revealed to the world the conditions under which I used to work. Word went around that Pierluigi had signed other people’s photos. This not only upset his clients, who expected authentic photos from Pierluigi (which was ironic in itself, given that an “authentic” Pierluigi photo would have been worse), but it also raised questions of copyright. Pierluigi’s Hollywood clients had no desire to get embroiled in legal disputes regarding photographers’ rights to “genuine” photos.

  In the end, we didn’t form any kind of partnership. Elizabeth didn’t want our agreement to fall under Pierluigi’s authority. But he did at least begin to allow his employees to sign their work, while I—out of loyalty to him and all my friends and colleagues—stayed with his agency. I allowed Pierluigi to keep representing me in order to keep his company alive as long as he could.

  Meanwhile, wanting to spend as much time with Claudye as possible, I turned down a lot of offers—from movie stars and major fashion houses to production companies wanting layouts for their movies. But there was one I simply couldn’t decline: when I was asked to go to Iran to photograph the shah, his famously beautiful wife, Princess Farah Diba, and their family. When I explained that I was still on my honeymoon, the shah kindly invited Claudye along too. We’d never been to Iran, so we were delighted to take the trip and, in the process, prolong our honeymoon.

  By sheer coincidence, before we were due to leave, an exhibition about Iran opened on the Champs-Elysées in Paris. Claudye and I went, hoping to get some idea of what we could expect to see on our trip. We met Mehd Bushehri, the husband of the shah’s twin sister, Princess Ashraf, and we spoke with an Iranian journalist. He told me that Farah would almost certainly make me wait—a lot—so I’d have to be very patient with the family. He recommended that I charge an hourly fee. I appreciated the advice.

  When we got off the plane in Tehran we were met by a television crew and a local reporter, who insisted on interviewing me immediately. Elizabeth Taylor’s personal photographer was in Iran to photograph the shah and Farah. It was a huge event for the Iranians as well as for the shah, who was eager to modernize his country and its image in the West.

  After the interview, the shah sent a driver to collect us. We were given a beautiful suite in the Royal Hilton, and the driver was at our complete disposal. He took us to visit Persepolis, Shiraz, the bazaar. Tehran’s modernity surprised me. It reminded me a lot of Milan, full of rich, well-dressed people, luxury restaurants, five-star hotels. But the moment you left the city, the scene shifted to two thousand years ago: camels everywhere, people dressed like Lawrence of Arabia extras drinking tea and smoking narghile by the side of the road. At one point we came upon a mountain covered with carpets. An incredible sight. There was a lake at the foot of the mountain where people went to wash their carpets, which they then laid out to dry across the ridge. As in Africa, there was an incredible disparity between the rich and poor, the urban centers and rural communities.

  On my first day at work, Claudye was invited to accompany me to the palace. The shah’s assistants took me to a room where I was to photograph Farah in front of a particular painting. They explained the protocol to me, how I was supposed to address Her Royal Highness, how I was never to touch her, how I had to stand at least three meters away. All those rules and formality made me very nervous. Heck, I was about to meet a full-blooded queen!

  Then Farah arrived wearing a Christian Dior dress, heavy makeup, and an elaborate hairdo. Uh-oh. Daywear with evening-style makeup and hair, plus a dress that did nothing for her legs (though perhaps she thought it did). My nervousness gave way to a distinct uneasiness. I knew how to work with cinema stars and producers in order to get the best shots for selling a movie. But royalty was different. Farah’s look was totally wrong. The photos would come out all wrong, to her detriment as well as mine. But how can you tell a queen that she’s chosen the wrong look? I thought about just snapping a few shots and then running out of there. But my father’s voice, and his high professional standards, wouldn’t let me.

  I switched off my flash and said in French, as politely as I could, “I’m sorry, but this situation isn’t right.” Having all these people around me and all this protocol made me feel very uneasy, I explained. “All right,” she replied. “Let’s talk about it.” She invited me to take a seat and share some tea with her. I pulled out all my tact and diplomacy, and she agreed to change outfit and set. She showed me a number of dresses, listening while I suggested which ones I thought suited her best and were more appropriate for our photo session. Interestingly, although I had no idea at the time, all the dresses she showed me that I thought looked best on her were made in Iran.

  During the shoot, I kept chatting with her in order to get her looking as relaxed and informal as possible. We talked about Elizabeth, the movie and entertainment industry, Iran. She was very pleasant company, an interesting mix of royal dignity and a worldliness acquired during her studies in Paris.

  Farah Diba, the queen and empress of Persia, dressed in a style that I suggested (with all due respect). Inset: She first turned up looking dreadful in Dior.

  When Claudye and I left the palace, we asked our driver to take us to a bazaar. As we were parking, we were suddenly surrounded by police cars. Without offering any explanation, the police told us we had to go back and escorted us all the way to the palace. I had no idea what was going on. I thought of all that protocol, all those rules. Had I broken one of them? Was the shah angry because I’d made his wife change her dress? Had I stood two meters away instead of three? We arrived, rushed and worried, to find Farah waiting for us. “I just thought maybe you’d like to photograph me while I put my children to bed,” she said. With my heart pounding nearly out of my chest, I managed to reply with a clear and calm voice that I’d be delighted to take such photos. We went to the family’s royal apartments, where I photographed her saying good night to her children and tucking them in, just like any mother anywhere.

  Evidently the royal family thought the photos I’d taken were sufficient, because the next day we were told we could leave. The photos proved a huge success. Farah was very happy. She’d become a superstar abroad, a beautiful, modern woman who would help her country move into the twentieth century. A couple of months later, the shah’s assistants called again, asking me to go back to do more layouts. This time I went alone.

  I took a few Christian Dior outfits along with me, hoping to do a little work for myself when I wasn’t busy with the royal family. I wanted to do a layout with Iranian models wearing Western clothes, something along the lines of how Farah presented herself the first time, only this time done properly. My God, I saw an entirely different Tehran that second time. I met so many girls related to the royal family who had studied in Europe and returned home with attitudes and ideas about life that had little to do with conservative Islam. The women were veiled, whether they were very beautiful or hard to look at. But from what I saw, it didn’t matter either way. Ugly or beautiful, they all wanted sex—immediately. Girls would come to the house I was staying in. I’d lift their veils. They’d lift their skirts. “Memiram barrat,” they’d say, which roughly translated means, “I’m dying with love for you.” Farah pretended (or maybe not) to know nothing about all this. When I asked her about all the loose behavior, she laughed and asked me who was “dying with love for me.” Then she corrected herself: “No! No!
Don’t tell me.” Like Farah, a lot of Iranian girls had studied abroad, in Paris, London, Switzerland. Back home they had to wear veils in the street. But indoors they dressed like Europeans. Remember, this was when the West had just discovered Mary Quant and miniskirts, French students were burning Paris, and Mick Jagger was hanging out with Princess Margaret of England. The Islamic backlash and the shah’s exile after the 1979 revolution were still a decade away.

  Armed Iranian guards ordered us, terrified, back to the palace, only to find that Farah merely wanted me to photograph her putting her kids to bed—thus gifting me with these exclusive photos.

  Princess Farahnaz; Prince Ali-Reza; Prince Reza; and little Princess Leila.

  One day I met the shah in a palace corridor while I was taking more pictures of Farah. Staff had already explained the correct protocol: if you encountered the shah, you had to stop and bow, and you couldn’t address him unless he spoke to you first. So I bowed in silence and waited. The shah asked how my work was going, and then added, “They tell me you like sports cars.” At my assent, he took me down to his garage. I’d never seen a garage built entirely out of marble, and such an enormous place it was, full of every kind of luxury car imaginable: Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, Austin Martin. Even a Bizzarrini 5300 Strada, a thrilling classic from the golden years of the Le Mans twenty-four-hour races, worth millions of dollars today. Today, I believe, it’s one of many autos of the shah’s collection collecting dust in a curiously neglected Islamic revolutionary museum somewhere outside Tehran. Every now and then classic car enthusiasts get a glimpse and post their sightings on the Internet.

  The shah asked if I’d like to go for a drive. The police and army cleared streets in the center of Tehran, and off went the shah of Iran and I for a spin around town. I quickly realized that the traffic hadn’t been blocked just to protect His Royal Highness but also to safeguard any stray pedestrian who might happen to be on the same street. I’ve never met a worse driver in my life.

  Later I was invited for a ride in a helicopter. Two others took off along with ours. When I asked why, one of the pilots explained that, should anyone happen to be planning to assassinate the shah, they wouldn’t know which helicopter he was in. That was the last time I got into a helicopter in Iran.

  I photographed Farah while she worked with a number of charitable organizations—education programs, communication, poverty aid. She was very involved in modernizing Iran and her people. She laughed when I complained about the food. She said I should taste different things, and brought me a dish of yogurt and cucumber. I hate cucumbers, and cucumbers hate me. They served me caviar in the morning. And they drank vodka all day. With caviar. I wasn’t impressed by their cuisine. Smoked fish, a lot of lamb, all far too rich for my stomach, which was used to simple Italian cooking.

  During this visit, Farah gave orders that I be allowed to photograph any member of the family at any time. One day I asked the shah to pose for a photo in the royal apartments along with Farah and their children, but not for a typical family portrait. He understood. He knew that I photographed people in a different way, that my specialty was capturing a moment, not one specific, planned moment, but whatever came along. The photos I’d taken of Farah on my first trip had been so admired that this time I had no trouble getting what I wanted. The family and his staff put themselves entirely in my hands.

  Farah at her work desk, 1968.

  Prince Reza, using one of my cameras, snaps his mom and dad on the sofa (with Princess Farahnaz and Prince Ali-Reza between them). Farah Diba later told me that it was the first time they had ever been photographed in their private apartments. The times truly were a-changin’.

  One of the photos I took that day became very famous. I got the whole family to sit on a sofa while their oldest son, Prince Reza Pahlavi, stood in front of them with a camera. I then photographed him taking snapshots of his family. I’d set his camera. But he was just a kid and kept fussing with it, changing the settings, with the result that all his photos ended up out of focus. I, on the other hand, was gifted with a series of wonderfully relaxed family moments and what proved to be uniquely intimate shots of the Iranian royals at home.

  On another occasion, Farah asked if I’d like to attend a gypsy wedding. A military plane took us to a desert encampment. I’d dressed all in black. After five minutes in that desert, I turned khaki. The ceremony took place in the evening. I had brought a camera, of course. But they wouldn’t let me use my flash because it would have ruined the atmosphere. I’d never seen anything like it. The venue had been transformed into an amusement park, packed with food stalls, game stands, a shooting range, jugglers, clowns. Once the marriage ceremony itself was over, the bride was taken to another tent where she had to weep all night. The men, meanwhile, took part in a game that involved trying to strike another man’s legs with a heavy stick. I saw a couple of broken bones. When someone asked if I’d like to take part too, I hastily replied, “Thank you, but no thank you.” The banquet was another matter. I heartily took part in that: simple, exquisite nomadic dishes, with succulent meat roasted in a pit dug in the sand. The party went on until 2 in the morning, with no alcohol. Women attended the party—except the bride, who had to remain alone all night crying. When I finally got back to my hotel, I was so totally covered in sand that I took a shower fully clothed.

  This caftan was a personal gift from Farah Diba to Elizabeth, who confessed that the solid gold and silver embroidery made it almost too heavy to wear. The photo was taken to go with Elizabeth’s thank-you letter.

  Doing my Dior fashion shoot nearly got me killed. Literally. I had all the girls dressed in the clothes I’d brought with me and adorned with jewels from the national museum. I posed them in front of a mosque. One of them was wearing a dress with very slender shoulder straps. One of them accidentally slipped off her shoulder, revealing her breast. Suddenly the crowd of curious onlookers began to close in on us, menacingly. They wanted to beat the girl, or worse. Then I heard machine-gun fire, and the crowd dispersed. It was the Iranian secret service. I had no idea they followed me even when I wasn’t with the royal family. But it was a good thing they did. They fired a few shots into the air to scatter the crowd, and the incident ended there. But it was a scary moment, to say the least. Dior and Islam clearly weren’t meant to meet on the street.

  A few months later, the shah’s assistants called me again and I returned to Iran for a third visit. The shah wanted me to photograph a charity event being held on behalf of abandoned children. The affair took place in his palace gardens, featuring lots of food and games. The shah arrived on a 500cc MV Agusta motorbike, clearly intending to impress this humble Italian photographer. Which he did. The bike had been a personal gift from Victor Emmanuele of Savoy and Corrado Agusta himself. From her expression, however, you could tell that Farah, his passenger, was simply terrified. I understood her pain.

  Later that evening, a magician came to our table. I told him I wasn’t interested in that kind of stuff, but he insisted, asking all of us to take off our wedding rings and put them on a plate in the middle of the table. He covered the plate with a cloth, made some hand gestures in the air, and then whisked the cloth away. Incredibly, the rings were now all linked together in a chain. Who knows how on earth he did it? Then I noticed Farah sitting with a fortune-teller, a gypsy woman reading cards spread out on a carpet. Farah wore a very serious expression on her face and looked uneasy. I took a couple of photos while she had her future read. I’ve no idea what she said because they spoke in Farsi, but it was clear that the cards predicted ugly things.

  The shah arrives at a charity event on an Agusta MV 500cc.

  The shah taking part in a feat-of-strength game, 1969.

  The shah takes aim at a rifle-shooting booth.

  In the light of the Islamic Revolution that would later sweep Iran, and all that would happen to Farah, the shah, and their country, maybe Farah really did see her future that night. On top of whatever other hardships she woul
d have to face, her daughter Leila would die of a drug overdose in London, and her youngest son, Ali-Reza, would shoot himself in Boston in 2011.

  During all my visits to Iran, I established a friendly relationship with Farah but not with the shah. He was a man people feared. He’d given me freedom to photograph him because he wanted to show a different side of himself. But even while he was trying to project a normal impression, the shah inspired fear. You can see it in the photos I took. He tries to look as if he’s having fun while shooting a fairground rifle or riding his motorbike. But actually he doesn’t look happy in the least. Can you blame him? Other powerful men would later come to me, asking me to soften their image. But none of them were in as precarious a position as the shah was in those days. I definitely left Iran with some interesting and unique photos, but I don’t believe I ever managed to humanize the shah as I did Farah. And even if I had, those photos wouldn’t be as honest as the ones you see. I never returned to Iran again.

  Farah Diba gets her cards read by a gypsy fortune-teller. The signs seem to be predicting disaster. Time would prove them right.

  But there were a few strange postscripts to my involvement with the royal family. In Rome one evening in 1971, I invited Gianfranco Piacentini, a famous Italian playboy, to dinner. He showed up with the shah’s first wife, Princess Soraya of Iran. She and the shah had divorced in the late 1950s because Soraya couldn’t have children, after which she lived mostly in Paris, in self-imposed exile, despite a brief foray into movie acting. Princess Soraya barely said a word throughout dinner. I have no idea if she knew that I’d worked with the shah’s family, but in any case she never asked me about them and wore a very sad expression all night.