Aishwarya Rai Bachchan (born November 1, 1973), is an award winning Indian actress. Rai, who won the Miss World title in 1994, made her film debut with Mani Ratnam's Iruvar (1997) and had her first critically and commercially success with Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), with whom she repeated this success with Devdas (2002). Since then, she has acted in nearly fourty Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and English films. Today, she is considered to be one of the most popular actresses in India and the best known Indian actress in the world. Rai is married to Indian actor Abhishek Bachchan and is daughter-in-law to Amitabh Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan.
Biography
Aishwarya Rai was born in Mangalore, in the South Indian state of Karnataka, to Krishnaraj Rai, a marine engineer, and Vrinda Rai, a writer on 1 November 1973. Her ancestors are from the Bunt community of Mangalore. Her family later relocated to Mumbai (Bombay). Rai has one elder brother, Aditya Rai who is a film producer.
Rai attended the Arya Vidya Mandir at Santacruz, Mumbai, then entered Jai Hind College, Churchgate, Mumbai for one year and then moved to Ruparel College, Matunga, Mumbai to finish her HSC. She was an A student and was on track to become an architect. Her mother tongue is Tulu. She also speaks Hindi, English, Kannada, Marathi and Tamil.
Rai began modeling on the side while pursuing for studies in Architecture, which did not materialise. In the 1994 Miss India contest, she was controversially placed second behind Sushmita Sen, and went on to win the Miss World title that same year and the Miss Photogenic award. After the one year reign as Miss World in London, she then worked as a professional model, in advertising and Indian fashion magazines and later got into Indian film industry.
After much speculation concerning their relationship, her engagement to Abhishek Bachchan was announced on January 14, 2007. The event was heavily covered by the media. They married on April 20, 2007 in a private ceremony held at the Bachchans' bungalow Prateeksha
Career
Aishwarya debuted in Mani Ratnam's Tamil language film, Iruvar (1997) with Mohanlal . She was introduced to Bollywood in the film, Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya; the film did not do well at the box office. However, her third project, a Tamil-language film, Jeans (1998) by S. Shankar was a critical and commercial success for which she was awarded the Filmfare Best Actress Award South. Aishwarya then appeared in many Bollywood films; a few successful films of her career include Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999) and Taal (1999) for which her performance was lauded. She was awarded the Filmfare Best Actress Award for her role in the former. In 2000 she had a supporting role in the hit film Mohabbatein and also in another hit film Josh.
In 2002, Rai appeared with superstars Shah Rukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit in the lavishly produced Devdas, which was a major box-office success and earned her the Filmfare Best Actress Award. The film attracted overseas attention as well, receiving a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival. It was during this time that she garnered the attention of the West as an Indian actress and went on to appear in a few Hollywood projects.
As her name gained popularity in the West, she was chosen by Time magazine in 2004 as one of the World's "100 Most Influential People" and in 2003, appeared on the cover of Time magazine. 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 was also featured on Oprah's "Women Across the Globe" segment. In 2003, she acted in the critically acclaimed and commercial 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 2002, and was a member of the Jury at Cannes in the year 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 was released: Bride and Prejudice . The film was an Indian version of Jane Austen's classic novel Pride and Prejudice. The film did well commercially in the U.K but not in India. Her next overseas venture, The Mistress of Spices, was critically acclaimed though not commercially successful. She then appeared at the closing ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, as part of a performance showcasing Indian culture, on behalf of the 2010 Commonwealth Games, to be held in New Delhi.
In between her overseas acting stints, she appeared in the Indian film Bunty Aur Babli in a hugely popular seven minute dance sequence for the song "Kajra Re". The dance sequence paired Rai with Abhishek Bachchan who, two years later (April 2007), became her husband.
At the end of the year 2006, she had two releases: Umrao Jaan and Dhoom 2. Umrao Jaan did poorly in India; however, her role in Dhoom 2, a sequel to the 2004 hit movie Dhoom brought her great attention. It was a hit commercially too. Both of these films also co-starred Rai's soon-to-be husband, Abhishek Bachchan.
2007 saw the release of Mani Ratnam's Guru which premiered in Toronto. The film, based on the life of Indian businessman Dhirubhai Ambani, was critically acclaimed and a big box office hit[11] . Her most recent film, Provoked, based on the book "Circle of Light" where she portrays a real life character, was released on 6 April, 2007 in India and the UK. The film did well commercially in the UK. It was critically acclaimed all over the world. At the end of April 2007 her first American film, The Last Legion, was released in Russia and the Netherlands. The film is expected to open in North American theaters in August 2007.
Filmography
1997 IRUVAR Mohanlal, Prakash Raj, Tabu Tamil Pushpa/Kalpana
1997 Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya Bobby Deol Hindi Ashi Kapoor
1998 Jeans Prashanth Tamil Madhumitha/Vaishnavi
1999 Aa Ab Laut Chalen Akshaye Khanna, Rajesh Khanna Hindi Pooja
1999 Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan Hindi Nandini
1999 Ravoyi Chandamama Akkineni Nagarjuna, Jagapati Babu Telugu special appearance (song sequence).
1999 Taal Anil Kapoor, Akshaye Khanna Hindi Mansi
2000 Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke Abhishek Bachchan Hindi Sahiba Gareval
2000 Hamara Dil Aapke Paas Hai Anil Kapoor Hindi Preeti Virat
2000 Josh Shahrukh Khan, Chandrachur Singh Hindi Shirley
2000 Kandukondain Kandukondain Ajith Kumar, Mammooty, Tabu Tamil Meenakshi Bala
2000 Mela Hindi Champakali (Special Appearance)
2000 Mohabbatein Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan Hindi Megha (Cameo)
2000 Sanam Tere Hain Hum Hindi Item number
2001 Albela Govinda, Namrata Shirodkar Hindi Sonia
2002 23rd March 1931: Shaheed Hindi Cameo
2002 Devdas Shahrukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit Hindi Parvati
2002 Hum Kisi Se Kum Nahin Amitabh Bachchan, Ajay Devgan, Sanjay Dutt Hindi Komal Rastogi
2002 Hum Tumhare Hain Sanam Hindi Cameo
2002 Shakti: The Power Hindi Item number
2003 Chokher Bali Prasenjit Chatterjee, Raima Sen Bengali Binodhini
2003 Dil Ka Rishta Arjun Rampal, Isha Koppikar Hindi Tia Sharma
2003 Kuch Naa Kaho Abhishek Bachchan Hindi Namrata Shrivastav
2004 Bride & Prejudice Martin Henderson English Lalita Bakshi
2004 Khakee Amitabh Bachchan, Akshay Kumar Hindi Mahalakshmi
2004 Kyun...! Ho Gaya Na Amitabh Bachchan, Vivek Oberoi Hindi Diya Malhotra
2004 Raincoat Ajay Devgan Hindi Neerja
2005 Bunty Aur Babli Hindi Item number
2005 Shabd Sanjay Dutt, Zayed Khan Hindi Antara Vashist
2006 Mistress of Spices Dylan McDermott English Tilo
2006 Umrao Jaan Shabana Azmi, Abhishek Bachchan Hindi Umrao Jaan
2006 Dhoom 2 Hrithik Roshan, Abhishek Bachchan, Bipasha Basu, Uday Chopra Hindi Sunehri
2007 Guru Abhishek Bachchan, Mithun Chakraborty Hindi Sujatha
2007 Provoked Naveen Andrews, Robbie Coltrane, Nandita Das English Kiranjit Alluwalia
2007 Jodhaa Akbar Hrithik Roshan Hindi Jodhaa Bai
2007 Sarkar 2 Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan Hindi Neha
2007 The Heart of India Hindi Mumtaz Mahal
2007 The Last Legion Colin Firth, Ben Kingsley English Mira
2008 Untitled Tarun Mansukhani Project[12] Abhishek Bachchan Hindi
