Singer, actress and media personality Googoosh is one of the most popular and enduring figures to have emerged from the Iranian entertainment industry. With a career spanning six decades, she has performed in languages including Persian, English, Azerbaijani, French, Turkish and Italian, and has a loyal following in countries across the world. Beyond film and music, she has been a popular fashion and cultural icon, having lent her name to the ‘Googooshy’ haircut and influenced the style of a generation of Iranian women.
Born Faegheh Atashin, Googoosh made her big screen debut in the movie Hope and Fear and went on to star at the age of 10 in George Obadiah’s The Runaway Angel. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, she appeared in over 30 films including Four Sisters, The Window, Travelling Mate and Along the Night. She also began performing and recording music, working at the cutting edge of Iranian pop with albums including the debut Do Panjareh, Nimeye Gomshodeye Man, and the Dariush collaboration Mosabbeb.
Following the Iranian Revolution, Googoosh was unable to perform for many years, but her fans remained hungry for more. In 2000, she announced an extraordinary comeback, launched with an extensive European and North American tour with dates in cities including Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Toronto, and many sold-out performances. She has since recorded several studio albums, collaborated with the likes of Ebi, Hassan Shamaizadeh and Siavash Ghomayshi, and has continued to tour internationally. She has become known to a new generation of audiences as the head judge on the reality show Googoosh Music Academy on Manoto 1, and among her many honours are a World Music Award for Best Iranian Female Singer, a Best Actress Award at Iran’s Sepas Film Festival, and a Best Singer Award at Italy’s San Remo Festival.
