Lisa Ray

Some Lesser Known Facts About Lisa Ray

• Does Lisa Ray smoke?: Not Known

• Does Lisa Ray drink alcohol?: Not Known

• She was born to a Polish mother and Hindu Bengali father in Toronto, Canada.

• She was very close to her maternal grandmother and used to speak Polish with her.

• She was very friendly with her father and used to watch movies of Satyajit Ray and Federico Fellini.

• She also spent some of her childhood time in Calcutta (now Kolkata).

• She was excellent in her studies and completed 5 years of high school in 4 years.

• She first came to public attention in the 1990s when she appeared in the Bombay Dyeing advertisement opposite Karan Kapoor.

• She planned to attend a university in Canada to study journalism. However, her plan was derailed after her mother was injured in a car accident.

• She became a sensation after appearing on the cover of Gladrags magazine wearing a red Baywatch-style swimsuit. 

• She was ranked 9th most beautiful woman of the millennium in a poll by Times of India.

• In the mid-1990s, she became famous worldwide after appearing in a music video of the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s Aafreen Aafreen.

• She made her Bollywood debut in 2001 with Kasoor after turning down a number of roles.

• Divya Dutta dubbed her voice in Kasoor.

• In 2005, she appeared in the Oscar-nominated film Water by Deepa Mehta. 

• She returned to Toronto in 2008 upon her mother’s death.

• She also appeared in a few uninhibited sex scenes.

• In 2009, she revealed that she has Multiple Myeloma at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

• She also started a blog- The Yellow Diaries, to share her cancer experience.

• She underwent a stem cell transplant on Christmas 2009 and in April 2009, she announced that she was cancer-free due to the transplant. However, she is not completely cured of the disease as Multiple Myeloma is an incurable disease.

• She is considered an inspiration to the cancer patients.

• She is pure vegetarian and even avoids dairy products.