Fakhri Khorvash was born Fakhri Asvadi in Kermanshah, Iran.

She finished high school at 16 and entered collage to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor.

She was working as a teacher when she was chosen by the “Bachelor Society” to act in a play.

Her outstanding performance brought her offers to participate in other plays. From 1954 to 1958 she appeared in seven films.

The Culture Ministry of the time tasked her with staging one teletheater every week and for a decade she collaborated with well-known names such as Jamshid Mashayekhi, Ezzatollah Entezami, Jamileh Sheikhi and others to bring different plays to life on the small screen.

She has acted in 38 films of which 15 were made after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Her last film was “A Little Kiss” in which she appeared at the age of 75.

In 1971, she has received the Festival’s Sepas Statue for Best Actress for “Mr. Simpleton”.

In 1976, Khorvash starred in Mohammad Reza Aslani's Chess of the Wind (Shatranj-e Baad). Criticising the royal government and featuring understated homosexuality as well a strong female protagonist, it was suppressed after only two screenings. The reels were feared lost and only resurfaced in 2014. Khorvash played a paraplegic woman who is hounded by various relatives to give up her fortune.

Khorvash's reputation and ability made her one of the few actors in Iranian cinema to continue her career in cinema in the period after the Iranian revolution. She had never acted in a television series before 1979, though she had directed episodes of the long-running serial Qamar Khanoum's House (1967–1971), but she appeared in several TV series in the post-revolutionary years, including the TV series Amir Kabir (1985) in which she played Mahd-e Olia, the mother of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar.

Her last film, “A Little Kiss” was released in 2005, in which she appeared at the age of 75.

In 2010, Khorvash began to live in the United States to be closer to her children. She was honored for her lifetime achievements at the Iranian Film Festival in San Francisco that year.

Filmography

2005 Yek boos-e koochooloo
1998 Green Memory of the Storks
1986 Bogzar zendegi konam
1986 Tofang-e shekasteh
1985 Taraj
1984 Malakh-zadegan
1984 Matarsak
1982 Dada
1981 Gerdab
1980 Panjomin savar-e sarnevesht
1980 Parvaz dar ghafas
1980 Zemzeme-ye mohabbat
1978 Ghobar neshinha
1978 Sooteh-Delan
1976 The Chess Game of the Wind | Shatranj-e baad
1976 Vaghti ke aseman beshkafad
1974 Shazdeh Ehtejab
1973 Bi-gharar
1973 Nefrin
1973 Chaos | Shir to Shir (dir. by Mansur Purmand)
1972 Hasan siah
1972 Shir-too-shir
1971 Aghaye Hallou
1970 Tolu
1960 Asemun jol
1959 Hame gonahkarim
1958 Jonube shahr
1958 Chivalrous Vagabond | Late javanmard
1958 Bohloul
1956 Island Advisor (dir. by Jamshid Sheibani)
1955 For you (dir. by Sadegh Bahrami)

Television

1967–1971 Qamar Khanoum's House
1985  Amir Kabir

Books

Zendegī rū-ye ṣaḥne [Life on stage] (in Persian).
Bonyād-e Honar. 2018. ISBN 978-1984379535.