Aishwarya Rai: queen of Bollywood doesn't kiss
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“Who is it, who is it?” demanded Letterman’s sidekick and band leader Paul Shaeffe. “Her name is Aushworya Raai,” Letterman added. “And she is also the most beautiful woman in the world.”
America has finally discovered Aishwarya Rai
That star is Aishwarya Rai, and it’s something of a misnomer to refer to her emergence in English-speaking films as a “birth”: She’s the biggest star in India’s vast film industry, known as “The Queen of Bollywood.” She’s little-known in North America, but expect that to change soon.
Rai is belle of “Bride & Prejudice” ball
“We thought we’d need a few extra police because of the crowds that wanted to see her,” said Chadha, who also directed the hit “Bend It Like Beckham.” “We weren’t expecting that we’d need 400!”
The big question is whether Rai, who has never even kissed a co-star in an Indian movie, will do so in a Western movie (the closest she got in “Bride” was nuzzling co-star Martin Henderson).
“We don’t want to offend our audiences, so there’s embracing but no kissing,” explains Priya Joshi, an associate professor of English at the University of California at Berkeley who’s writing a book about popular Hindi movies. “But these are hyper-sexy films; they’re not prudish. Hindi film is famous for its dance sequences and they’re extremely suggestive in a non-raunchy way. A wet sari has become the way in which female flesh is displayed.”
Bollywood superstar Aishwarya Rai sets her sights on America