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Padma Parvati Lakshmi, Lady Rushdie
(born September 1, 1970 in Chennai, India) is an Indian-American cookbook
author, actress, and model who has described herself as the first
well-known model from India. She has been the host of the reality
television program Top Chef since season two and is an ambassador for the
United Nations Development Fund for Women.
She was born into a Tamil Brahmin family in 1970 and raised in Madras,
India and the United States. Her first name means "lotus" in Sanskrit, as
well as "pearl" or "jewel." Parvati is a consort of Shiva. Lakshmi is the
name of the Hindu goddess of wealth.
Her parents' only child, Lakshmi is the daughter of an executive with
Pfizer and his first wife, Vijaya, a nurse who presently specializes in
suicide prevention. The senior Lakshmis separated when their daughter was
one and divorced a year later. Both parents later remarried; her mother's
third and present husband is a plumber. She reportedly had no further
contact with her father until 1998.
When she was 14 years old, she was involved in a serious automobile
accident, causing an injury of her right arm, which required surgery
leaving a 7 inch scar, between her elbow and shoulder.
By a later marriage of her father's, Lakshmi has a half-brother and a
half-sister, who was an actress and classical dancer but is now pursuing a
career with special-needs children. As Lakshmi said in an interview
published in The Guardian, "My father had quit his job as an executive at
Pfizer to manage her career. That was kind of like rubbing salt in the
wound. I didn't understand why he wanted that relationship with her, and
not with me."
Reportedly, she spent part of her childhood attending elementary school in
Chennai, India. Lakshmi is a 1992 graduate of Clark University in
Worcester, Massachusetts, where she received a B.A. with honors in Theater
Arts.
Lakshmi was brought up as a vegetarian and has admitted that because of
this, she sometimes becomes "squeamish" when sampling other cultural
delicacies.
On April 17, 2004, in New York City, Lakshmi married the novelist Salman
Rushdie, to whom she was introduced at a party hosted by the journalist
and editor Tina Brown. By him, she has two stepsons, Zafar and Milan. On
July 2, 2007 the couple filed for divorce, shortly after Rushdie was
granted a knighthood.
When questioned about Rushdie's age (he is seven years younger than her
father) and her long estrangement from her father (whom she has described
as "the most sexy, manic, in-shape, lean, tall, handsome man I have ever
met") Lakshmi has said that there may be a correlation: “I think that we
are attracted to what we feel we need."
Lakshmi's career began at age 20, when she was discovered by a
high-profile modeling agent in Spain while sitting in a cafe. As she has
stated, “I was the first Indian model to have a career in Paris, Milan and
New York. I’m the first one to admit that I was a novelty.”
She has modeled for top designers such as Emanuel Ungaro, Ralph Lauren,
and Alberta Ferretti and done ad campaigns for Roberto Cavalli and Versus.
She was a favorite model of the photographer Helmut Newton, whose
photographs of her often highlighted the large scar on her right arm.
She has appeared on the magazine covers of Cosmopolitan - January 2002,
Vogue - May 2004, L'Officiel India - October 2004, You – December 19,
2004, Shoo - Spring 2005, Harper's Bazaar - October 2005, Newsweek - March
6, 2006, Asian Woman – May/June 2006, Avenue - July/August 2006, and
Industry - February/March 2007.
Lakshmi had a comical supporting role as the lipsynching disco singer Sylk
in the 2001 American movie Glitter with Mariah Carey. She co-starred with
Amitabh Bachchan and Jackie Shroff in the 2003 Hindi action box office
failure Boom as Shiela Bardez, one of a trio of supermodels accused of
stealing diamonds. Lakshmi was last seen on screen as Geeta with Aishwarya
Rai and Dylan McDermott in Paul Mayeda Berges' 2005 film The Mistress of
Spices. Padma will be starring in Oscar-nominated director Deepa Mehta's
(Water) upcoming 2007 film, Kamagata Maru which was earlier titled
Exclusion.
Padma Lakshmi made a 2002 guest appearance as alien princess Kaitaama in
Precious Cargo, the 37th episode of the popular science fiction TV series
Star Trek: Enterprise. She was also hostess of Domenica In, Italy's
top-rated television show. She portrayed Sean Bean's nemesis in the 2004
-2005 iTV TV series Sharpe's Challenge. In 2006 Lakshmi appeared in ABC's
TV series The Ten Commandments with Dougray Scott, Naveen Andrews, and
Omar Sharif. Padma took over as hostess of the popular TV cooking
competition series Top Chef in 2006 during its second season and continues
in 2007 in its third season.
Her first cookbook Easy Exotic was awarded Best First Book at the 1999
World Cookbook Awards at Versailles. She was host of the Food Network
series, Padma's Passport, which is part of the larger series Melting Pot.
She has also been a guest host on parts of the British culinary tourism
show Planet Food, hosting the segments on India and Spain. Her second
cookbook Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet was released October 2, 2007. |
