M

Mahvash, born Masoumeh Azizi Borujerdi, was an Iranian singer, dancer, film actress, and stage performer. Coming from a poor family, she was lauded as a performer who resonated with the people in the 1950s. She performed risqué songs in cabarets, on the radio, and in movies.

It is also said that she began her career in a classical Ruhowzi dance troupe as a dancer, pishparde singer, and actress, and later married a violinist who secured her entertainment engagements She gained the admiration of the masses’ by articulating in her songs the problems, difficulties, and frustrations of the common people, struggles which she knew very well.

Her most famous songs involved a Call and response-style singing with her male audience. In 1957, she published a book, which she termed an "autobiography," entitled "Secrets of Sexual Fulfillment."

More of a sex manual, the book included pictures of her in a bathing suit and was widely distributed despite her being prosecuted for it in June 1960. 

It seems that Mahvash's ability to speak to the marginalized majority absolved her of her forays into prostitution and other publicly indecent behavior.

When Mahvash died in a car accident in 1961, her public funeral became the largest of its time in Iran, with thousands of Iranians on the streets to mark her passing.

Iranian religious authorities were initially unwilling to bury her in a Muslim cemetery, considering her "unclean" and "unchaste" due to her career as an entertainer. However, when faced with the large number of mourners celebrating her life, they relented.