Somebody Who Knew Somebody--Arthur Ashe and Homa Nikpour

 Arthur Ashe

David tells about knowing somebody who knew somebody:

      I don’t think I ever told you this, but I presume you remember Homa Nikpour, the beautiful Persian woman I lived with BC (Before Charlie :) ). If not, here is the story anyway.

     One night I am at home and I answer the phone with this strangely familiar yet unknown male voice on the other end, asking to speak to Homa. I said, "Sure, I’ll go get her; can I tell her who is calling?" The voice says, "Arthur Ashe." I knew it was him instantly. He was in Seattle for some kind of book selling or tennis event – I forget which – and he was calling to see if Homa had time to see him. About a decade or 15 years before when she was still living in Iran as a young, rich jet-setter, she had met Arthur when he played in a tournament at her private club in Tehran. He pursued her all over the world for about two years, asked her to marry him, but she refused as it was simply verboten for members of her social class to marry a foreign commoner like Arthur Ashe. There was no restriction on who she spent time with and partied with as long as she didn’t entertain marriage with him. 

     I went with her from 1983 – 1986, and we lived together most of that time until she moved to Southern California to be nearer to the rest of her family. I never asked her to marry me so I don’t know if I would have been verboten also. Her family’s standards might have changed after the Revolution. They were billionaires and very close to the family of the Shah. 

     When she was about 23-24 she married the son of Supreme Commander of the Iranian military. They lived in his father’s palace until they moved to the United States where her husband got a PhD in mathematics from Princeton and then took a faculty position at the Univ. of Washington. She went back to school at UW, receiving a BA in Russian Literature around 1980-1 (Phi Beta Kappa) and an MBA in 1983. 

     She said her family’s Palace was much bigger and nicer; her family owned the Iranian glass works which meant they had an absolute monopoly on all the glass manufactured in the Country of Iran. Her dad got an engineering degree in Germany in the 1930’s for the express purpose of, as the older brother, inheriting and operating her grandfather’s glass works monopoly. The family also owned the only private bank authorized by the Shah; his three brothers owned and ran the bank. 

     All the men in the family had to flee for their lives in 1979. The last I heard was that the brothers owned and operated a bank or two in Philadelphia. Her dad moved to Paris where he lived until he died. Her mother stayed in Iran and continued to live, surrounded by servants in the family palace. I met her on two occasions when she visited Seattle. She was one of the most beautiful, elegant women I have ever seen, much less met. She spoke flawless French so I could communicate just a little bit with her with my broken French. When she came to the US, she would bring several hundred thousand dollars worth of rare and ancient jewelry which they would place in a consignment store in LA so they could get at least some petty cash out of Iran.