Mohammad-Ali Fardin (Persian: محمدعلی فردین, 4 February 1931 – 6 April 2000) was a prominent Iranian actor, film director and freestyle wrestler and was the runner-up in world wrestling.

He then started his first professional appearance in the cinema with the invitation of Ismail Kushan by playing a role in Cheshme Ab Hayat (1959).

Soltane Ghalbha, Alley of Men, Ganj-e Qarun, Midnight Cry, Mr. 20th Century, The Secret of the Elder Tree, The Waiting Beach, Baba Shamal, The Rendezvous of Khashm, The Crookes (film), Ayyub, Barzakhi, Hell + Me, and Jabar the corporal escapes are some of his prominent films.

[1] After graduating from high school, Fardin joined the Air Force and became a freestyle wrestler in his twenties; he won a silver medal at the 1954 World Wrestling Championships and placed fourth in 1957.

He also acted in the Indo Iranian Bollywood film Subah O Sham[3] (1972) starring alongside Waheeda Rehman, Sanjeev Kapoor, Simin Ghaffari and Azar.

With its patriotic story about resisting foreign invasion, it was a chance for Fardin, Malek-Motiei, Ghaderi and Rad to renew their threatened careers as actors in the post-revolutionary atmosphere.

[4] About how the film's success was turned into disaster Motalebi says: In one friday Mr. Mohsen Makhmalbaf gathered a couple of people and they started collecting signatures for a petition which was written on a scroll, stating that "We have made a revolution while these actors are transgressors."

Fardin opened a pastry shop too and when I went to visit him, I used to wait outside as long as there were no customers so that he wouldn't feel ashamed when he saw me.

[7] The news of his death was largely ignored by state radio and television, which was run according to the dictates of the Islamic establishment, who had disapproved of his acting career and had banned his films post the 1979 revolution.