Aishwarya Rai was born on November 1 , 1973. Ash for fans and media is an actress from India . She is currently regarded as one of the biggest names in Bollywood .

Aishwarya was born in Mangalore to Krishnaraj and Vrinda Rai, in the South Indian state of Karnataka. She is a Miss World beauty contest winner, a professional model, and an actress in Bollywood and Hollywood films.

Rai has appeared as a model in many Indian fashion magazines, including the Indian Vogue; she is currently featured in international ads for L'Oréal Paris, De Beers Diamonds, and Coca-Cola.

She was first-runner up in the 1994 Miss India Contest; she lost to Sushmita Sen. Later, Ms. Rai won the Miss World title, while rival Sushmita Sen won the Miss Universe title. Her first movie was the popular tamil movie, Iruvar, by Mani Ratnam.

On the crest of the ensuing publicity, she became an actress, appearing in Mani Rathnam's Iruvar in (1997). Her earlier films did not succeed at the box office; critics said that she couldn't act, and merely posed, as if she were still modeling. Her first big success was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's movie Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Later successes include Taal and Devdas. Rai has also acted in films for the Tamil-speaking regional film industry, such as Jeans, Kandukondain Kandukondain, and for the Bengali film industry, in Chokher Bali.

Devdas, in which Aishwarya joined Bollywood superstars Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit, was a lavishly-produced mega-hit. The film attracted overseas notice as well; it was the first-ever Bollywood picture to receive a special screening at the Cannes Film Festival.

Ms. Rai thus became a world-wide star rather than just a Bollywood heroine. In 2003, Rai was a member of the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. In 2004, she was chosen as one of TIME Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World." Rai was the subject of a 60 Minutes profile on January 2, 2005; the profile called her "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World." A month later she appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman, and on April 25, 2005, she was featured on Oprah's "Women Across the Globe" segment. A wax figure of Rai is on display in London's Madame Tussaud's wax museum.

Gossip columns had frequently buzzed with news that Rai was being considered for high-profile Hollywood productions, but the job offers never materialized. Then British director Gurinder Chadha hired Aishwarya to play the heroine in Bride and Prejudice, a Hollywood-funded but Bollywood-ized version of Jane Austen's classic novel, Pride and Prejudice. The movie did well at the box office and Aishwarya's Hollywood profile rose a notch.

Rai is now said to be signed for another Hollywood movie, Rolland Joffe's project Singularity. She will play opposite Brendan Fraser.
She is in the cast for The Last Legion co-starring Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley.
She recently (summer of 2005) completed filming on Director Jagmohan Mundhra's film Provoked. She is co-starring with Nandita Das. The film was shot mainly in Britain.

Earlier in her career, Aishwarya was involved in a now-infamous relationship with heavyweight star Salman Khan, which was known for its turbulence, where Rai was beaten up and abused by Salman. It eventually led to her ejection from a Shah Rukh Khan film when Salman's numerous and rowdy visits began disrupting filming and Shah Rukh's personal safety.

Since then she has been romanticaly linked to rising star Vivek Oberoi and film dynasty scion Abhishek Bachchan (the former fiance of Karisma Kapoor)