Juhi Chawla

Biography:  Juhi Chawla is an Indian actress, film producer and television presenter. After being crowned as the winner of the Miss India beauty contest in 1984, Chawla pursued an acting career. She went on to become one of the leading actresses of Bollywood, and starred in numerous commercially and critically successful films, from the romances Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak and Darr to Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke, which earned her the Filmfare Best Actress Award, to Yes Boss and Ishq. During the 2000s, after having starred in over 70 mainstream Hindi films, Chawla turned towards art and independent cinema, along with films in her native tongue of Punjabi, and has been mostly working in parallel cinema. Her turn proved to be successful, and she gained critical recognition for her performances in films like 3 Deewarein and Bas Ek Pal. Since 2000, Chawla branched out into film production and television presentation as well. Chawla was born in Ludhiana, Punjab, India. She was the first child born to Dr. S. Chawla and Mona. She had one brother named Sanjeev. Her uncle Satish Anand is a film distributor based in Karachi, Pakistan. She graduated from Sydenham College, Mumbai. She was the winner of Miss India title in 1984; later she won the Best Costume Award for the Miss Universe contest in 1984. From beauty contests, she moved into films - with her movie debut being Sultanat in 1986. She then starred in the Kannada film Premaloka which was a super-hit. She also acted in two more Kannada films namely Shanthi Kranthi and Kindara Jogi, which did not fare well at the box office. She also featured in Goonj with Kumar Gaurav. Her first big hit in Bollywood was Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak. in 1988, in which she starred with Aamir Khan. Her following films did not do as well. However, Pratibandh and Bol Radha Bol were hits. Chawla made a special appearance in the film Chandni (1989) produced by Yash Raj Films. She was later cast in the critically acclaimed Aaina (1993) opposite Jackie Shroff, and then in one of her biggest hits, Darr (1993) with Sunny Deol and Shahrukh Khan. The same year she also starred in the hits Lootere and Hum Hain Rahi Pyaar Ke. She won the Filmfare Best Actress Award in 1993 for Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke. In 1994, most of her films were not sucessful. However, after that she starred in several commercialy sucessful films such as Loafer (1996) and Yes Boss and Ishq in 1997. Her pairing with Aamir Khan has been repeatedly successful with Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (1989), Hum Hain Rahi Pyar Ke and later on Ishq (1997) becoming hits. She has teamed up with Shahrukh Khan too, acting in Raju Ban Gaya Gentleman and then later in Darr and Yes Boss. Juhi later turned producer and became the co-owner of a production company called Dreamz Unlimited with Shahrukh Khan and director Aziz Mirza. The first two films produced by the production company - Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani and Asoka failed at the box office. Their third film, Chalte Chalte was the first success for the company. Juhi has recently appeared in the critically acclaimed films 3 Deewarein, 7½ Phere and My Brother Nikhil for which Taran Adarsh went as far as saying that her performance was amongst the finest in her career. She won a Star Screen Award Best Supporting Actress for 3 Deewarein. She was then seen in Nikhil Advani's Salaam-e-Ishq: A Tribute To Love for which she received good reviews for her performance. She also starred with fellow superstar Urmila Matondkar in Bas Ek Pal (2006) and with Manoj Bajpai in 'Swami'. Juhi's latest releases include Ravi Chopra's Bhoothnath with Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan where she has also sung the song Chalo Jaane Do and thus made her singing debut. Another film called Krazy 4 with Irfan Khan and Arshad Warsi was released in 2008. During the 2000s, Chawla was also noted for her work as a show presenter and host of numerous television shows, particularly award ceremonies, including Filmfare Awards and Zee Cine Awards. Juhi's first Malayalam film was Harikrishnans, in which she acted alongside both the superstars of the industry Mohanlal and Mammootty. She also has appeared in three Punjabi films: Shaheed Uddham Singh (2000), Des Hoyaa Pardes (2004) and Waris Shah: Ishq Daa Waris (2006). Chawla is married to industrialist Jai Mehta; the couple have two children. She gave birth to her first child, a girl named Jhanvi, on 21 February 2001 and on 21 July 2003, she gave birth to a son called Arjun. Her mother passed away in a car accident in Prague during the shooting of the movie Duplicate in 1998. Jai Mehta and Juhi Chawla are the co-owners of the Indian Premier League team Kolkata Knight Riders in partnership with Shahrukh Khan's company Red Chillies Entertainment.