Aishwarya Rai Bachchan born 1 November 1973) is an Indian actress and former Miss World. Before starting her acting career, she worked as a model and gained fame after winning the Miss World title in 1994. Rai has acted in over 40 movies in Hindi, English, Tamil and Bengali, which include international productions.
Often cited by the media as the most beautiful woman in the world, Rai made her movie debut in Mani Ratnam's Tamil film Iruvar (1997) and had her first commercial success in the Tamil movie Jeans (1998). She came to the attention of Bollywood in the movie Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (1999), directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Her performance in the film won her the Filmfare Best Actress Award. In 2002 she appeared in Bhansali's Devdas (2002), for which she won her second Filmfare Best Actress Award.
After a low phase in her career during 2003–2005, she appeared in the blockbuster Dhoom 2 (2006), which turned out to be her biggest Bollywood commercial success. She later appeared in films like Guru (2007), Jodhaa Akbar (2008), and Enthiran (2010) which were commercially and critically successful. Rai has, thus, established herself as one of Bollywood's leading actresses, and she has also been recognised for several of her dance performances in films. In 2009, she was honoured with the Padma Shri by the Government of India.
