Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Preity Zinta - Bollywood Actress

Preity Zinta - Bollywood Actress
Preity Zinta was born on January 31st, 1975.
She is an Indian actress who appears in popular Bollywood movies. She is among the most successful actresses in the industry, and regarded as one of the biggest names in Bollywood.

Born in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, she studied at the Convent of Jesus and Mary School, Shimla. She comes from a Hindu Rajput family of Rohru in Shimla District. At first she was going to do a English honours but decided to pursue psychology. She also attended Bombay University. After getting a degree in criminal psychology at the St. Bedes College, Zinta began her career as a model and commercial (ad films) actress (she was seen in Lyril's soap ad film).

Her father, Durganand Zinta was an officer in the Indian Army. Durganand Zinta died when Preity was thirteen, in a car accident in which her mother, Nilprabha Zinta was also involved. Her mother broke many bones in the accident, including her spine. Her mother was bedridden for two years because of this incident. Zinta has two brothers, Deepankar Zinta and Manish Zinta, a year older and a year younger, respectively. Deepankar is a commissioned officer in the Indian Army, while Preity's other brother Manish, is settled in Los Angeles.

Zinta was meant to make her acting debut with Shekhar Kapur's Tara Rum Pum Pum opposite Hrithik Roshan but the film never took off.

Technically her first film was Kundan Shah's Kya Kehna but it got delayed till 2000. The delay of another film Soldier meant that she made her acting debut with Dil Se (1998). The film was her breakthrough role and she won the Filmfare Best Debut Award for her performance, which was only twenty minutes long. This was followed by the success of Soldier and Kya Kehn. Her role as a teenage single mother for the latter was well acclaimed and she received various nominations in the best actress category. Later, she had successes with the films Dil Chahta Hai (2001), Chori Chori Chupke Chupke (2001) and Mission Kashmir (2000) that were average performers at the box office.

In 2003, Zinta was the female lead in three of year's highest grossing films: The Hero: Love Story of a Spy, Koi... Mil Gaya and Kal Ho Naa Ho [13]. She won many awards for her role as Naina in Kal Ho Naa Ho. Her performance in the film got her the Filmfare Best Actress Award. Since then she has appeared in the averagely received Lakshya (2004), the box office hit Veer-Zaara (2004) and the semi-hit Salaam Namaste (2005) which turned out to be one of the biggest hit overseas.

She joined a group of top stars (Shahrukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Saif Ali Khan, Arjun Rampal, and Priyanka Chopra) in the Temptation 2004 concert, which was a huge international success.

In May 2006 she, along with Karan Johar, received an invitation to represent Bollywood at the Cannes Film Festival. They took this opportunity to promote Johar's latest film Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna which Preity also stars in. The film which released in August 2006 has done very well at the box office.Her most recent film Jaan-E-Mann performed poorly at the box office.

Zinta is currently dating the Bombay Dyeing heir, Ness Wadia. They are said to be very deeply in love, and there is a lot of speculation whether the two will marry soon. There were many rumours circulating that the pair had split up, but Zinta put an end to these rumours when she appeared hand-in-hand with Ness at an award function.

Gossip has also linked her with many other Bollywood stars, but Zinta has strongly denied all these rumours.

Previously, when she was not shooting she used to return to her native town Shimla. Zinta recently moved into her own home in Mumbai, which she bought in mid-2005. Her home is situated in Bandra. She has two dogs called Junior and Lola.

In 2003, Zinta was a witness in the Bharat Shah case and his links to the Mumbai mafia. She stuck by her statement that she received a threatening phone call from the mafia whilst she was shooting for the film Chori Chori Chupke Chupke (2000). She was given police protection and was forced to stay out of the public eye for months. Many other celebrities including Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan were witnesses in the case but they soon retracted their statements. Zinta was the only witness not to have turned hostile.

In 2005, along with other Bollywood stars, Preity performed at the HELP! Telethon Concert to help raise money for the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

Zinta donated her winnings, from her 2007 appearance on Kaun Banega Crorepati to the Shimla District Red Cross Society in Himachel Pradesh. She donated Rs 25 lakhs to the society in support of its welfare activities.

Her trademark is her dimple.
Critics began to take notice of her after her performance in Kya Kehna.
She has worked four times with Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Amitabh Bachchan and Rani Mukerji.
Her good friends in the industry include Yash Chopra, Rekha, Aishwarya Rai[33], Karan Johar, Abhishek Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan and Gauri Khan. Her very close friends are Hrithik Roshan and his wife Suzanne Khan Roshan.
She narrowly escaped death twice in late 2004, once after an explosion at a Temptation concert in Colombo, and later in the Indian Ocean Tsunami.
Zinta has written three columns for BBC South Asia.
She was on the cover of the first issue of Marie Claire magazine to be sold in India.

Preity Zinta - Bollywood Actress

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