Khosrow Shakibai

Khosrow Shakibā'í or Khosro Shakibaei (March 27, 1944, Tehran, Iran – July 18, 2008, Tehran) (Persian: خسرو شکیبایی‎‎) was an Iranian stage and cinema actor. He ranks amongst the most accomplished actors of his generation. Khosrow Shakibai was born to Colonel Ahmad Shakibāi and Ms Farideh Khātami. His father, who was an army Colonel, died from cancer when Khosrow (called Mahmoud by family and close friends) was only fourteen. Khosrow studied acting at Faculty of Fine Arts of University of Tehran. He began his stage career in 1963 and branched out his activities into film dubbing in 1968. Shakibā'í initiated his film acting in 1982 with Khatt-e Ghermez (The Red Line), directed by Masoud Kimiai. He had played in seven feature films when the film director Dariush Mehrjui offered him the title role of Hamoun, a film that over time has achieved a cult status.

Shakibai's performance in Hamoun marked a turning point in his career. He received a Crystal Simorgh at Fajr International Film Festival for his portrayal of Hamoun, a literary intellectual who gradually loses his touch with reality and becomes entrapped into an obsessive and destructive conflict with his estranged wife whom he deeply loves. Shakibai played also in some major television series. He won a Crystal Phoenix for Kimiā (The Philosopher's Stone) (1994) directed by Ahmad Reza Darvish.

Shakibai found also a considerable following for his voice, brought about through publication of the recordings of his readings of poems by such luminaries of the modern Persian poetry as Forough Farrokhzad and Sohrab Sepehri. Shakibai is credited for helping to raise the stature of performing arts in Iran by the end of the 1980s, when the authorities in charge tended to neglect this area of cultural activities. He married twice. From his first marriage with the actress Tānyā Joharí he has one daughter named Poupak, and from his second marriage with Parvin Koush'yār one son named Pouria.