“From Karkheh to Rhein” makeup artist Masud Valadbeigi dies at 86
TEHRAN –(Iranart)- Makeup artist Masud Valadbeigi, whose collaboration in “From Karkheh to Rhein” and several other movies earned him wide acclaim, died of heart failure at Tehran’s Mehrad Hospital on Tuesday. He was 86.
He was admitted to the hospital twice over the past two months, his son-in-law Nima Fallah told the Persian service of MNA.
Born in Kermanshah, Valadbeigi began his career with director and writer Nader Ebrahimi’s TV series “Fire without Smoke” during the 1970s. A screen version of the series called “The Sound of the Desert” was released in 1975.
He also pursued an acting career in Iran’s post-revolution cinema in the early 1980s by working with director Behruz Afkhami in the TV series “Kuchake Jangali” about the Jangali Movement, which took shape in the aftermath of the 1905-11 Constitutional Revolution under the leadership of Mirza Kuchak Khan Jangali in response to the period of political decay brought about by the advent of World War I and the occupation of Iran by Anglo-Russian and Ottoman troops.
As a makeup artist and an actor, Valadbeigi also collaborated with numerous celebrated directors, such as Ali Hatami, Mohammad-Ali Sajjadi, Masud Kimiai, Iraj Qaderi and Fereidun Jeirani.
His brilliant acting did not win him acclaim from critics and film festivals, but his skills in makeup earned three Crystal Simorgh at the Fajr Film Festival for “The Last Act” in 1991, “From Karkheh to Rhein” in 1992 and “The Ugly and the Beautiful” in 1998.
During the 2000s, Valadbeigi also starred as Najdat ibn Amir, the leader of the Kharijites in Mecca, in the TV series “Mokhtarnameh”, which was about an uprising organized by Mokhtar Saqafi after the events of Ashura, the 10th of Muharram, to take revenge against the killers of Imam Hussein (AS).
He also collaborated as a makeup artist in this project with top makeup designer Abdollah Eskandari.
“Makeup art in Iran is indebted to him,” Eskandari said after expressing his condolences to his family in an interview with the Persian service of ISNA.
“He was a veteran makeup artist, a really kind and spirited man. I had the honor of working with him in ‘Mokhtarnameh’ and I saw closely how he was working with affection,” he added.
He made a cameo appearance in the first season of the TV series “Setayesh” in the 2010s, and his chronic illness brought Valadbeigi’s activities in cinema and TV to a halt.
source: Tehran Times