Aishwarya Rai Biography

Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan or Aishwarya Bachchan^[1] (Birthname: Aishwarya Rai; Tulu: ಐಶ್ವರ್ಯಾ ರೈ; born 1 November 1973) is an Indian actress. Before starting her acting career, she worked as a model and gained fame after winning the Miss World contest in 1994.

Rai made her movie debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film Iruvar (1997) opposite Mohanlal. She had her first commercial success in the Tamil movie Jeans (1998), and came to the attention of Bollywood in the Hindi movie Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Her performance in the film won her the Filmfare Best Actress Award, and she successfully performed in Bhansali's next project, Devdas (2002), for which she won her second Best Actress Award at the Filmfare. Since then, she has acted in over forty movies in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, and English, including the international productions Bride & Prejudice (2003), Mistress of Spices (2005), The Last Legion (2007) and The Pink Panther 2 (2009) in English.

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 and he works in Navy and 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.

She can communicate in several languages, including Tulu, Hindi, English, Marathi and Tamil.^[2] 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 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.

Rai has previously dated Bollywood actors Salman Khan and Vivek Oberoi. She is now married to Indian actor Abhishek Bachchan who is three years her junior. The wedding took place on 20 April 2007.^[3]