Short Biography

Aishwarya Rai is an award-winning South Indian actress. Rai, who won the Miss World title in 1994, made her film debut in Mani Ratnam`s Iruvar (1997) and had her first critical and commercial 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 forty 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

EARLY LIFE:
Rai was born in Mangalore, in the South Indian state of Karnataka, to Krishnaraj Rai, a marine engineer, and Vrinda Rai, a writer. Her ancestors are from the Bunt community of Mangalore. Her family relocated to Mumbai (Bombay) after her birth. 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 the Indian film industry.

CAREER:
Rai debuted in Mani Ratnam`s Tamil language film, Iruvar (1997) with Mohanlal. She was introduced to Bollywood in the film, Aur Pyaar Ho Gaya with Bobby Deol as her co-star; the film was not a big hit on 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 Tagor

Miscellaneous Information

Distinctive Features

Her beautiful body.

Her beautiful face.

Her long hair.

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