Princess Fazila To Marry Soon

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30900, 5 November 1965, Page 2

Princess Fazila To Marry Soon

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) ISTANBUL. Tragedy came early to 24-year-old Princess Fazila, soon to be married to 25-year-old Mr Hayri Suad Urguplu, son of Turkey’s former Prime Minister, Mr Suad Hayri Urguplu. She was only 17 years of age when she became engaged to King Faisal of Iraq in September, 1957, who was killed by a revolutionary.

They were both on holiday hi the Bosphorus area at the time, she at a friend’s villa, he on board the royal yacht Alia. As she flashed the magnificent emerald and diamond

engagement ring on her finger and proudly displayed the large emerald and diamond shaped brooch which the King had given her as an engagement present, she was radiantly happy. Only one thing worried her: her height. Her eyes shining, she pleaded with reporters interviewing her that day: “Please do not say that my height is 1.78 metres (about 5 feet 10 inches). As you see,

I am not as tall as all that. My height is 1.65 metres (about 5 feet 5 inches).” To which her mother added: “I am 1.72 (just over 5 feet 7 inches).” Short-Lived But the happiness of the Princess with blue-green eyes, rosy cheeks and fair hair, was short lived. Before they could be married, the young King was killed in the 1958 Revolution in Iraq. Princess Fazila retired, nursing her grief, and was no more seen water ski-ing on the Bosphorus in the summer. She spent the next few years with her family in France and in England, studying. Finally, she met Mr Urguplu in Germany where he was studying engineering. They became engaged, just before her fiance’s father gave up his post as Prime Minister after the October election. Family Exiled Princess Fazila was bom in 1941 at Neuilly, a fashionable suburb of Paris, where her family was living at the time. Her mother, Princess Hanzade belonged to the ruling family of the Ottoman Empire, but left Instanbul when only six months old with her parents and other members of the family who were exiled as the Ottoman Empire passed into history and modern Turkey was bora. She lived first in Switzerland and later in France.