Aishwarya Rai Biography

Early Life Aishwarya Rai was born in Mangalore to Krishnaraj Rai, a marine biologist, and Vrinda Rai, a writer. Her family belongs to the Bunt Community of Mangalore. She has one elder brother, Aditya Rai, who is an engineer in the merchant navy and also co-produced one of Rai's movies, Dil Ka Rishta year 2003. After she was born, 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. She can speak several languages, including Tulu, Hindi, English, Marathi and Tamil. While pursuing her studies in architecture, Aishwarya began modeling on the side.

Career In the year 1994 Miss India contest, she won the second place behind Sushmita Sen, and went on to win the Miss World title in the same year, where she also won Miss Photogenic award. She left her studies after winning the pageant and spent one year reigning as Miss World in London. Aishwarya then started working as a professional model and then moved on to her current profession as an actress. Rai previously dated Bollywood actors Salman Khan and Vivek Oberoi. She is now married to actor Abhishek Bachchan. The wedding took place on 20 April, 2007. Rai made her acting debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film, Iruvar year 1997 with Mohanlal, and was introduced to Bollywood in the film, Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya with Bobby Deol, which also released that year; the film didn't do well at the box office. However, her third project, S. Shankar's Tamil film, Jeans year 1998 was a critical and commercial success, earning her the Filmfare Best Actress Award South. She went on to appear in many Bollywood films a few successful films of her career include Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam year :1999 , which earned the actress her first Filmfare Best Actress Award and Taal year-1999, which gave her another nomination for Best Actress at the Filmfare her performances in both the films were lauded. In year-2000, she played a supporting role in the hit films Mohabbatein and Josh. Later that year, she starred in the Tamil film Kandukondain Kandukondain, which won her positive reviews . In year 2002, Rai appeared with Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit in Sanjay Leela Bansali's lavishly produced Devdas. The film attracted overseas as well, receiving a special screening at the cannes Film Festival. It was during this time she garnered the attention of the West as an Indian actress and went on to appear in a few Hollywood projects. Devdas went on to become the highest grossing film in the year both in India and overseas, earning the actress her second Filmfare Best Actress Award. As her name gained popularity overseas,she was chosen by Time magazine in year 2004 as one of the World's "100 Most Influential People", and appeared on the cover of Time magazine, Asia Edition TIMEasia in 2003. She was the subject of a 60 Minutes profile on January 2. A month later she appeared on the Late Show with David letterman. She also featured on Oprah's "Women Across the Globe" segment . In year-2003, she acted in the success Bengali film, Chokher Bali, an adaptation of one of Rabindranath Tagore's novels by the same name. Rai has been a regular at the Cannes Film Festival since year 2002, and was a member of the Jury at Cannes in the 2003. In October 2004 , a wax figure of Rai became on display in London's Madame Tussaud's wax museum . The same month, her first foreign film , Bride and Prejudice released. The film was an Indian version of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice. In year-2005, Rai signed a three-year contract with L'Oréal, as a spokesmodel for the cosmetics company. At the end of the 2006, she had two releases: Umrao Jaan and Dhoom 2. While the former did poorly in India, her role in the latter, which was a sequel to the year-2004 hit movie Dhoom brought her great attention. The film went on to become the biggest hit of the year and sparked a controversy for a scene containing a kiss between her and Hrithik Roshan. For her performance,she received nominations for Best Actress at a number of award ceremonies,including Filmfare. year 2007 saw the release of Mani Ratnam's Movie Guru which premiered in Toronto. The film, based on the life of Indian businessman Dhirubhai Ambani, did well at the box office.