DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — For Googoosh, Iran’s most famous singer, life has always been a balancing act of one kind or another.
She began as a child, performing with her acrobat father, who balanced her on a chair on another chair resting only on his chin. Then later, as an icon of stage and screen in Shah’s later years, her looks and hairstyles were copied by Iranian women who wanted to look more “Googooshi”, a Farsi adjective of hers.
Then came the decades of silence after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, banning her from singing, only to return to the stage abroad in 2000. And now, embarking on a farewell tour, she adds authorship as her latest reinvention as her homeland once again undergoes societal change.
“I didn’t realize that all these challenges and struggles were considered a balancing act,” the 75-year-old singer told The Associated Press. “If that means, then yes, I’ve spent my whole life trying to create and maintain a balance between my personal and artistic life.”
‘I was a hit!’
The new book by the singer, born Faegheh Atashin, is called “Googoosh: A Sinful Voice.” In it, Googoosh, with the help of co-author Tara Dehlavi, recounts a life shaped as much by the political forces that have changed Iran in the modern era as by her tumultuous personal life.
But it all started with performing at a young age with her father, Saber Atashin, to whom the book is dedicated along with the Iranian people. Googoosh recounts that she only fell once in performances, when her father caught her. But from the first performance in the chair, Googoosh seemed destined to be the center of attention.
“They held their breath and waited in complete silence,” she recounted. “Every muscle in my body tensed. Seconds felt like an eternity. Finally, Dad slowly began to gently lower me to the ground. When my feet touched the floor, the audience let out a sigh of relief before bursting into loud applause. I survived. And I was a hit!”
Googoosh began singing and acting in films at a young age. This included before the royal court of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who later became deathly ill and fled Iran just before the 1979 revolution.
Googoosh had been tabloid fodder in Iran before the revolution. Married four times in her life, her personal life had long been a fascination. And in her book, she recounts that she suffered abortions and struggled with substance abuse around and after the revolution, including freely taking cocaine and smoking opium. She contemplates suicide at one point in New York City before deciding to return to Iran under its newly formed theocracy.
“There were times when I would ask you that question and say, ‘Are you sure you want to share this?'” said Dehlavi, her co-author. “And you always said this: ‘I either tell my story or I don’t. I have to, I have to tell everything.’
Detention, harassment and an escape
Returning to Iran, Googoosh found herself harassed by its newly empowered theocracy, which placed a lien on her home and blocked her ability to receive a passport. Authorities forbade her to sing or sing, she said, and at one point locked her up
But she describes that while she tried to hide her identity in public or in private, people always pushed her to sing again, to find her voice despite restrictions and threats.
“After the revolution, the pressure on me increased,” Googoosh said. “Because Farsi is my mother tongue and I grew up in Iran, I couldn’t adjust to living outside my country. I didn’t want that life. I was hoping that I could somehow continue to sing for my own people, inside my own country.”
Finally, however, in 2000, under the government of reformist President Mohammad Khatami, Googoosh managed to secure a contract to work abroad, managed to raise the money to pay his guarantees, obtain a passport and leave Iran. She has never returned, but has performed abroad for the past 25 years for Iranians who are similarly homesick for their country.
Islamic hardliners in Iran still denounce her, especially after her 2014 music video about gay love, punishable by death in the country.
Iranian women are increasingly abandoning the hijab
Googoosh’s new book and her farewell tour come at a time of change in Iran. More and more Iranian women are choosing to ditch the country’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab. The death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 and the nationwide protests that followed enraged women of all ages and opinions in a way that few other issues have since the revolution.
But in the meantime, Iran’s economy continues to strain under international sanctions over its nuclear program. Its theocracy continues to execute people in the wake of the 12-day war with Israel, while increasingly targeting intellectuals and others with arrest.
“We see our young people, especially women, fighting for their most basic rights, including choosing what to wear, expressing their art freely if they have artistic talent, and living a normal life like people in other parts of the world,” Googoosh said.
“People in my country are struggling to provide a normal life for their families. They are struggling for clean water, clean air and land to live on. Our young people have grown old without ever enjoying their youth. Our people must end this painful cycle and achieve the freedoms that every human being deserves.”
But when asked what her plans are once her tour is over, Googoosh left open the possibility of returning to the stage again.
“Throughout my life I almost never managed to plan my future. Everything just happened to me,” she said. “We have not been in control of our own lives for 47 years. Whatever we planned never happened and whatever happened was never planned by us. I am no exception and I expect us to continue to live this way.”
She added: “However, I prefer to leave my artistic work for a day when the Islamic Republic no longer exists in my country.”