Early life Fardin was born and raised in a poor area in southern
Tehran. He was the eldest of three children. After graduating from high school, Fardin joined the
Air Force and became a freestyle wrestler in his twenties; he won a silver medal at the
1954 World Wrestling Championships and placed fourth
in 1957. (1972) starring alongside
Waheeda Rehman,
Sanjeev Kapoor, Simin Ghaffari and Azar. The film was directed by
Tapi Chanakya. His voice in the film was dubbed by
Satyen Kappu.
Post-Revolutionary Limitations Fardin was banned from working for almost the entire time that he lived through the
post-revolutionary period. He could only act in one film,
The Imperilled (Barzakhi-ha), which was released in 1982 and resulted in his life-time ban.
The Imperilled was directed by
Iraj Ghaderi and had four pre-revolutionary male stars in the lead roles. With its patriotic story about resisting foreign invasion, it was a chance for Fardin,
Malek-Motiei, Ghaderi and
Rad to renew their threatened careers as actors in the post-revolutionary atmosphere. The film was a hit and became the highest grossing Iranian film of all time in its short period of screening in theaters. But it was soon banned and consequently the four actors were banned from working. Saeed Motalebi, an established writer and director in the pre-revolutionary era, was the writer of the film. He is one of the people who has repeatedly recounted stories about how the film and the actors were banned. About how the film's success was turned into disaster Motalebi says: In one friday Mr.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf gathered a couple of people and they started collecting signatures for a petition which was written on a scroll, stating that "We have made a revolution while these actors are transgressors." They did it right in front of that theater in the Revolution Square near the university of Tehran. They said "Look how theaters are crowded while
friday events are deserted." That's how they stopped my film. Then a reporter who was queued to ask something about our film, went and told the then prime minister (
Mir-Hossein Mousavi) "There is a film in theaters whose writer wants to convey that people who are fighting in the fronts are problematic persons." The prime minister replied "These are leftovers of junk intellectuals who will soon go to the dustbin of history." Malek-Motiei became jobless and turned his garage into a pastry shop. Ghaderi put some rice bags in his office and became a rice dealer. Fardin opened a pastry shop too and when I went to visit him, I used to wait outside as long as there were no customers so that he wouldn't feel ashamed when he saw me. These were all caused by those illogical efforts which I will never forgive.
Death Fardin died as a result of
cardiac arrest on 6 April 2000 at the age of 69. He was buried in the Behesht-e-Zahra cemetery in Tehran. More than 20,000 mourners attended his funeral in
Tehran. == Filmography ==