Priyanka Chopra

Priyanka Chopra

She was born 18 July 1982.She is an Indian film actress and singer, and the winner of the Miss World pageant of 2000. Through her successful film career, Chopra has become one of Bollywood's highest-paid actresses and one of the most popular celebrities in India. She has received numerous awards and nominations, including a National Film Award for Best Actress and Filmfare Awards in four categories.




Early life and background

Priyanka Chopra was born on 18 July 1982 in Jamshedpur, Bihar to Ashok and Madhu Chopra, both physicians in the Indian Army.Her father was Punjabi, while her mother is from Jharkhand.She has a brother, Siddharth, who is seven years her junior. Actress Parineeti Chopra, Meera Chopra and Barbie Handa are her cousins.Due to her parents' occupations the family relocated to a number of Indian cities, including Delhi, Pune, Lucknow, Bareilly, Ladakh, Chandigarh and Ambala. Among the schools she attended were La Martiniere Girls' School in Lucknow and St. Maria Goretti College in Bareilly.In an interview published in Daily News and Analysis, Chopra said that she did not mind travelling regularly and changing schools; she welcomed it as a new experience and a way to discover India's multicultural society. Among the many places that she lived, Chopra has fond memories as a child of playing in the valleys of Leh, in the cold northwestern Indian desert region of Jammu and Kashmir. She has said, "I think I was in Class 4 when I was in Leh. My brother was just born. My dad was in the army and was posted there. I stayed in Leh for a year and my memories of that place are tremendous ... We were all army kids there. We weren't living in houses, we were in bunkers in the valley and there was a stupa right on top of a hill which used to overlook our valley. We used to race up to the top of the stupa". She now considers Bareilly her home town, and maintains strong connections there.

Priyanka Chopra

At the age of thirteen, Chopra moved to the United States to study, living with her aunt, and attending schools in Newton, Massachusetts, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after a stop in Queens, New York, as her aunt's family also moved frequently.While in Massachusetts, she participated in several theatre productions and studied Western classical music, choral singing and Kathak dance. Chopra was the only Indian in her class to have been selected at the state level for the National Opus Honour Choir.However, by sophomore year, she was keen on becoming a software engineer or a criminal psychologist, rather than a performer. During her teenage years in America, Chopra sometimes faced racial issues and bullying. She has said, "I was a gawky kid, had low self-esteem, came from a modest middle-class background, had white marks on my legs ... But I was damn hard working. Today, my legs sell 12 brands."
After three years, Chopra returned to India, finishing the senior year of her high-school education at the Army Public School in Bareilly.During this period, she won the local "May Queen" beauty pageant, after which she was pursued by admirers, leading her family to equip their home with bars for her protection. Her mother then entered her in the Femina Miss India contest of 2000she finished second,winning the Femina Miss India World title.Chopra then went on to the Miss World pageant, where she was crowned Miss World 2000 and Miss World Continental Queen of Beauty Asia & Oceania at the Millennium Dome in London on 1 December 2000.Chopra was the fifth Indian contestant to win Miss World, and the fourth to do so in seven years.She had enrolled in college, but left after winning the Miss World pageant. Chopra said that the Miss India and Miss World titles brought her recognition, and she then began receiving offers for film roles.

Chopra has maintained a strong relationship with her family, including her younger brother, Siddharth, and lives in an apartment on the same floor as her family. She was especially close to her father, who died in June 2013 in 2012 she got a tattoo reading "Daddy's lil girl", in his handwriting. Having not come from a film background, she describes herself as a self-made woman.Her mother, a well-established gynaecologist in Bareilly, gave up her practice to support Chopra as she embarked upon a film career.




Acting career
After winning Miss India World, Chopra was cast as the female lead in Abbas-Mustan's romantic thriller Humraaz (2002), in which she was to make her film debut.However, this fell through for various reasons: she stated the production conflicted with her schedule, while the producers said they re-cast because Chopra took on various other commitments. Her screen debut occurred in the 2002 Tamil film Thamizhan as the love interest of the protagonist, played by Vijay. The film was praised for its wit and dialogue, although Chopra's character was seen as lacking in depth Indian news and entertainment portal Rediff.com asserted that she showed "no promise".

Priyanka Chopra ... is equally passionate about her work on behalf of children and adolescents. We are proud of the work she has done with us so far on child rights, and, we are thrilled about all what we will be doing together so that no child gets left behind.


Singing

Chopra's main vocal influence was her father, who she said was "an incredible singer", and helped develop her interest in singing. She used her vocal talent early in her pageantry career. Her first recording, the song "Ullathai Killadhe" in the Tamil film Thamizhan (2002), was made at the urging of her director and co-star, Vijay (who had noticed her singing on the set).Shedeclined to sing playback for "Tinka Tinka" in her film Karam (2005), preferring to concentrate on her acting career, but later sang the song live on the television programme Sa Re Ga Ma Pa.Chopra recorded an unreleased song for Bluffmaster! (2005). In August 2011, Universal Music Group signed Chopra to a worldwide recording agreement with DesiHits. The deal indicated that her first studio album would be released by Interscope Records in North America and by Island Records elsewhere.Try Carter, CEO of Atom Factory (which also manages Lady Gaga), was signed by Chopra to manage her music career.