Lisa Ray

Lisa Ray (Hindi: लीसा रे), born 4 April 1972,[1] is a Canadian actress and former fashion model. She was diagnosed with multiple myeloma on 23 June 2009 and started her first cycle of treatment on 2 July 2009. In April 2010, she announced she was cancer-free Early life
Lisa Ray was born in Toronto to an Indian father and a Polish mother and grew up in the suburb of Etobicoke.[3] She excelled academically, doing five years of high school in four, while attending three different high schools: Etobicoke Collegiate Institute, Richview Collegiate Institute and Silverthorn Collegiate Institute.[4]

She spoke Polish to her maternal grandmother and watched movies of Federico Fellini and Satyajit Ray with her cinephile dad.[3] Ray was spotted by an agent in a crowd during a family vacation in India when she was 16, when she began modeling.

[edit] Career
Lisa Ray came to public attention when she appeared in an advertisement for Bombay Dyeing wearing a high-cut black swimsuit, [5] opposite Karan Kapoor.[6] Subsequently, she returned to Canada to attend university to study journalism, but a car injury which injured her mother derailed those plans. Instead, she returned to India where she appeared on the cover of Glad Rags wearing a red Baywatch-style swimsuit. The sensation that caused led to more magazine covers, spokesperson deals and a job as host of her own show-business program. A Times of India poll named her the "ninth most beautiful woman of the millennium", the only model in the top ten.[4]

She made her cinematic debut in 1994 in the Tamil film Nethaji opposite actor Sarath Kumar where she appeared in a brief role. Later she acted in a Telugu film Takkari Donga opposite Mahesh Babu. After turning down a number of roles,[7] she made her Bollywood debut with the film Kasoor in 2001 opposite Aftab Shivdasani[6] where her voice was subsequently dubbed by Divya Dutta as she could not speak Hindi.[8] Her work in that film caught the eye of Deepa Mehta who cast Ray in the romantic Indian-Canadian romp, Bollywood/Hollywood in 2002.[3] In 2005, she worked again with Mehta in the Oscar-nominated film, Water where she did speak her own lines in Hindi although her voice was dubbed in the final cut of the film.[8] Since then she has worked in productions from Canada, Europe and the United states.

Recent roles include a farm girl in All Hat, a school teacher in A Stone's Throw a housewife in 50's apartheid South Africa in The World Unseen and a Christian-Arab lesbian in the humorously entitled "I Can't Think Straight" directed by Shamim Sarif.

In 2007, she completed filming for Kill Kill Faster Faster, which is a contemporary film noir inspired by the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by Joel Rose. She appeared nude in the movie and in a few uninhibited sex scenes, something which no mainstream actress of Indian origin had done before.[9]

She guest starred in USA Network series Psych, which was directed by Jay Chandrasekhar, which aired on 30 November 2009.

She appeared in the famous song "Afreen Afreen" by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan in 1996.

Lisa Ray has been featured in the Canadian edition of Hello magazine as one of the '50 Most Beautiful People' of the country.

Ray has also appeared in a guest role of a reporter, Dominique Ball , in the recent Woody Harrelson movie Defendor.

Ray will next be seen in UniGlobe Entertainment's cancer docu-drama titled 1 a Minute scheduled for release in 2010.[10] The documentary is being made by Namrata Singh Gujral and will also feature cancer survivors Olivia Newton-John, Diahann Carroll, Melissa Etheridge, Mumtaz (actress) and Jaclyn Smith as well as William Baldwin, Daniel Baldwin and Priya Dutt, whose lives have been touched by cancer. The feature is narrated by Kelly McGillis. The film will also star Barbara Mori, Deepak Chopra and Morgan Brittany.

[edit] Personal life
Lisa Ray lives with her longtime partner, fashion photographer Paolo Zambaldi.[11] She was diagnosed with multiple myeloma on 23 June 2009, a cancer of the white blood cells known as plasma cells, which produce antibodies. It is a rare disease.[8][12] In April 2010, she announced she was cancer-free following a stem cell transplant.[2]

[edit] Awards
Voted Star of the Future at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival,[13]
Top Ten most Beautiful Indian Woman of the Millenium by the Times of India
Won the Best Actress in a Canadian film for Water by the Vancouver Critics Circle (ref: imdb.com, Glow magazine, December 2007).
Won 'Voice Achievers Award for 2009' for outstanding contribution in fields of film, trade, literature and sports[14]
[edit] Filmography
Year Film Role Notes
1994 Hanste Khelte Rekha
Nethaji Priya Tamil language film
2001 Kasoor Simran Bhargav Hindi language film
2002 Takkari Donga Bhuvana Telugu language film
2002 Bollywood/Hollywood Sue (Sunita) Singh
2004 Ball & Chain Saima
2004 Yuvaraja Lovely Kannada language film
2005 The Standard Bollywood Actress TV Series
Water Kalyani
Seeking Fear Nina Atwal
2006 The Flowerman Louise
Quarter Life Crisis Angel
A Stone's Throw Lia
2007 I Can't Think Straight Tala
Blood Ties Elena TV Series, 1 episode
The World Unseen Miriam
All Hat Etta Parr
2008 Kill Kill Faster Faster Fleur
Toronto Stories Beth
The Summit Rebecca Downy TV Mini-Series
2009 Somnolence
Defendor Dominique Ball
Cooking with Stella Maya Chopra
Let the Game Begin Eva completed
2010 Trader Games Sarah post-production
2010 1 a Minute Star post-production
following a stem cell transplant.[2]