Who is Aishwarya Rai?
Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan born
1 November 1973 is an Indian actress and former Miss World. Before starting
her acting career, she worked as a model and gained fame after winning the Miss
World title in 1994.
Rai, who made her movie
debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film Iruvar (1997), had her first commercial success
in the Tamil movie Jeans (1998), which earned her a Filmfare Best Actress Award
South. She came to the attention of Bollywood in the movie Hum Dil De Chuke
Sanam (1999), directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Her performance in the film
won her the Filmfare Best Actress Award. In 2002 she appeared in Bhansali's
next project, Devdas (2002), for which she won her second Best Actress Award
at the Filmfare. After a low phase in her career during 2003-2005, she appeared
in the blockbuster Dhoom 2 (2006), which turned out to be her biggest Bollywood
commercial success. She later appeared in films like Guru (2007) and Jodhaa
Akbar (2008), which were commercially successful and got her critical acclaim.
Rai has thus established herself as one of the leading contemporary actresses
in the Indian film industry.
During her career, Rai has
acted in over forty movies in Hindi, English, Tamil and Bengali including the
international productions Bride & Prejudice (2003), Mistress of Spices (2005),
The Last Legion (2007) and The Pink Panther 2 (2009) in English.
Early life
Rai was born in Mangalore to Krishnaraj Rai and Vrinda Rai. Her family belongs
to the Bunt community of Mangalore. She has one elder brother, Aditya Rai who
works in Navy and has also co-produced one of Rai's movies, Dil Ka Rishta (2003).
At an early age her parents moved to Mumbai where she attended the Arya Vidya
Mandir high school in Santa Cruz. Rai then entered Jai Hind College at Churchgate
for one year, and then moved to Ruparel College in Matunga to finish her "HSC"
studies. She did well in school and planned to become an architect and went
on pursuing studies in architecture. She can communicate in several languages,
including her mother tongue Tulu, as well as Hindi, English, Marathi and Tamil
She started studying architecture but gave up her education to pursue a career
in modelling.
Miss World
While pursuing her studies in architecture, Rai began modeling on the side.
In the 1994 Miss India contest, she won the second place behind Sushmita Sen,
and was crowned Miss India World. She went on to win the Miss World title the
same year, where she also won the Miss Photogenic award. She abandoned her studies
after winning the pageant and spent one year reigning as Miss World in London.
Rai then started working as a professional model and then moved on to her current
profession as an actress.
Film career
Early career
Rai made her acting debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil biopic film, Iruvar (1997)
with Mohanlal,[4] The controversial film was a critical success and won many
awards including Best Film award at the Belgrade International Film Festival,
two National Film Awards, and two Filmfare Awards South. Rai appeared in dual
roles, opposite veteran actor Mohanlal, Rai made her Bollywood debut in the
film, Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya opposite Bobby Deol, which also released that year;
the film did not do well at the box office, and was also panned by critics.
However, her third project, S. Shankar's Tamil film, Jeans (1998) was a critical
and commercial success, earning her the Filmfare Best Actress Award South. The
film, was also noted for the song "Poovukkul", written by Vairamuthu,
dubbing Rai as the "eighth wonder of the world", with the music video
comparing her to seven other prominent world monuments.
References
^ Wikipedia
^ "The name’s
Bachchan, Aishwarya Bachchan!". ExpressIndia. 2007-05-01. http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=85796.
Retrieved on 2008-11-20.
^ "'They should not break up soon'". Rediff.com. http://specials.rediff.com/movies/2007/apr/19video2.htm.
Retrieved on 2009-02-14.
^ "Letterman unveils Ash to America". Times of India. 2005-02-09.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1015866.cms. Retrieved on 3 December
2008.
^ "Iruvar (1997)". Internet Movie Database. http://imdb.com/title/tt0119385/.
Retrieved on 2008-10-27.
^ Warrior, Shobha (2003-09-03). "25 years, 25 landmarks". Rediff.
http://www.rediff.com/movies/2003/sep/03mohan1.htm. Retrieved on 2009-04-02.
^ "Box Office India report of 1997". Archived from the original on
2007-12-17. http://web.archive.org/web/20071217155601/http://www.boxofficeindia.com/1997.htm.
Retrieved on 2008-11-20.
^ "Of Jeans and bottom lines". Rediff.com (V. Srinivasan). http://www.rediff.com/entertai/1998/mar/21jean.htm.
^ "Wonder of wonders". Rediff.com (Rajitha). http://www.indiaabroad.rediff.com/entertai/1998/apr/20sh.htm.
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