Padma Parvati Lakshmi, Lady Rushdie (born September 1, 1970) is an Indian American cookbook author, actress, and former model who has described herself as the first well-known model from India. She has been the host of the reality television program Top Chef since season two and is an ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women.
Padma was born in the state of Kerala, India, on September 1, 1970, though she grew up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. However, Padma spent most of her adolescent life in the United States.
Her parents' only child together, Lakshmi is the daughter of an executive with Pfizer and his first wife, Vijaya, a nurse who presently specializes in suicide prevention. Her parents separated when she was one and divorced a year later. Both parents later remarried; her mother's third and present husband is a plumber. She reportedly had no further contact with her father until 1998.
When she was 14 years old, she was involved in a serious automobile accident, causing an injury of her right arm, which required surgery leaving a 7 inch scar, between her elbow and shoulder. The accident happened on a Sunday afternoon on her way back with her parents from a Hindu temple in Malibu. She remembers a loud bang, looking out the windshield and realizing the family's red Mercury Sedan was airborne. Padma describes the event in the Vogue-April 2001 edition as "Flying in a car felt like an exhilarating hallucination, an unbelievable ride that oddly remains one of the most beautiful images in my memory." The car flew 40 feet down an embankment directly into a tree. The tree trunk fell directly on top of the car. She remained conscious, covered in glass, for the 40 minutes it took for the paramedics and firefighters to get through the traffic. They used the "jaws of life" to extract the family from the crumpled car. A helicopter landed in the middle of the highway to air lift her parents away while an ambulance carried Padma to the hospital. Fortunately, everyone survived. Her injuries included a fractured right hip and a shattered upper right arm which resulted in her famous 7-inch scar.
By a later marriage of her father's, Lakshmi has a half-brother and a half-sister, who was an actress and classical dancer but is now pursuing a career with special-needs children. As Lakshmi said in an interview published in The Guardian, "My father had quit his job as an executive at Pfizer to manage her career. That was kind of like rubbing salt in the wound. I didn't understand why he wanted that relationship with her, and not with me."
Reportedly, she spent part of her childhood attending elementary school in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Lakshmi is a 1992 graduate of Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, where she received a B.A. with honors in Theater Arts..
Lakshmi was brought up as a vegetarian and has admitted that because of this, she sometimes becomes "squeamish" when sampling other cultural delicacies.
Marriage
On April 17, 2004, in New York City, Lakshmi married the novelist Salman Rushdie, to whom she was introduced at a party hosted by the journalist and editor Tina Brown. On July 2, 2007 the couple filed for divorce, shortly after Rushdie was granted a knighthood.
When questioned about Rushdie's age (he is seven years younger than her father) and her long estrangement from her father (whom she has described as "the most sexy, manic, in-shape, lean, tall, handsome man I have ever met"), Lakshmi has said that there may be a correlation: “I think that we are attracted to what we feel we need."
Modeling
Lakshmi's career began at age 20, when she was discovered by a modeling agent in Spain while sitting in a café. As she has stated, “I was the first Indian model to have a career in Paris, Milan and New York. I’m the first one to admit that I was a novelty.” Despite Lakshmi's comment about her being a pioneer as a model of Indian descent, her career follows in the footsteps of Persis Khambatta, a former Miss India, who modeled for Revlon.
She has modeled for top designers such as Emanuel Ungaro, Ralph Lauren, and Alberta Ferretti and done ad campaigns for Roberto Cavalli and Versus. She was a favorite model of the photographer Helmut Newton, whose photographs of her often highlighted the large scar on her right arm.
She has appeared on the magazine covers of Cosmopolitan - January 2002 , Vogue - May 2004, L'Officiel India - October 2004, – December 19, 2004, - Spring 2005, - October 2005, Newsweek - March 6, 2006, Asian Woman– May/June 2006, Avenue - July/August 2006, and Industry - February/March 2007.
Movies and television
Lakshmi had a comical supporting role as the lip synching disco singer Sylk in the 2001 American movie Glitter with Mariah Carey. She co-starred with Amitabh Bachchan and Jackie Shroff in the 2003 Hindi action box office failure Boom as Shiela Bardez, one of a trio of super models accused of stealing diamonds. Lakshmi was last seen on screen as Geeta with Aishwarya Rai and Dylan McDermott in Paul Mayeda Berges' 2005 film The Mistress of Spices. Padma will be starring in Oscar-nominated director Deepa Mehta's (Water) upcoming 2007 film, Kamagata Maru which was earlier titled Exclusion.
Padma Lakshmi made a 2002 guest appearance as alien princess Kaitaama in Precious Cargo, the 37th episode of the popular science fiction TV series Star Trek: Enterprise. She was also hostess of Domenica In, Italy's top-rated television show. She portrayed Sean Bean's nemesis in the 2004-2005 iTV TV series Sharpe's Challenge. In 2006 Lakshmi appeared in ABC's TV series The Ten Commandments with Dougray Scott, Naveen Andrews, and Omar Sharif. Padma took over as hostess of the popular TV cooking competition series Top Chef in 2006 during its second season and has continued in its third and fourth seasons.
Awards
Lakshmi was named number 66 on AskMen.com's "The Top Most Desirable Women of 2008" list.
Selected filmography
1994 Unzipped Documentary (High Fashion) Herself
1997 Linda e il brigadiere
ep: "Il fratello di Linda" TV Series (Italian, Comedy) "Indian Lady"
1998 Il Figlio di Sandokan TV Series (Italian, Drama) N/A
1999 Caraibi TV Series (Italian, Adventure) Malinche
2000 Planet Food Documentary (Cooking) Host
2001 Glitter Film (US, Drama) Sylk
2001 Melting Pot: Padma's Passport TV Series (US, Cooking) Host
2002 Star Trek: Enterprise
ep: Precious Cargo TV Series (US, Sci-Fi) Kaitaama
2003 Boom Film (Indian, Drama) Shiela Bardez
2005 The Mistress of Spices Film (Indian, Drama) Geeta
2006 The Ten Commandments TV Series (US, Biblical) Princess Bithia
2006 Sharpe
ep: Sharpe's Challenge TV Movie (Action/History/War) Madhuvanthi
2006 Top Chef 2 TV Series (US, Reality/Cooking) Host
2007 Top Chef 3 TV Series (US, Reality/Cooking) Host
2008 Top Chef 4 TV Series (US, Reality/Cooking) Host
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