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Padma Lakshmi- model & "Top Chef" on the Bravo cable network

 

NRI model, Padma Lakshmi divorce British author Salman Rushdie


London, July 02, 2007
Ravinder Sodhi

British author Salman Rushdie, 60, well known for his novel "The Satanic Verses," which hurted many Muslims and sparked death threats that forced him to live in hiding for nine years, has agreed to divorce Padma Lakshmi, 37, because of her desire to end their marriage. In 1989, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran's religious leader, called on Muslims to kill Rushdie.

  

They were married in 2004 and she was his fourth wife and they had no children.

Padma Lakshmi started her career as a model and has since acted in movies and television shows and written cookbooks. She hosts the U.S. cooking show "Top Chef" on the Bravo cable network.

 

"Top Chef" on the Bravo cable network:

  • Padma Lakshmi, already known internationally as an actress and award-winning writer, is now also the host of the top-rated TV series Top Chef  on Bravo.
  • Her second cookbook Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet, a follow up to her award-winning debut Easy Exotic (winner of the International Versailles Prize for Best First Cookbook), is a much larger endeavor filled with over 150 recipes from around the world and intriguing personal memoirs.  Look out for it in the late spring of 2007.  
  • Top Chef, in which she is a judge as well as host, pits 15 talented contestants against one another over three tense months. Each week, Padma will tell one of them to "pack your knives and go."
  • This is by no means her first hit TV show. Her television credits include hosting Rai Television's Dominica In, a live variety show which became Italy's highest rated program.  For The Food Network, she hosted Padma's Passport where she cooked diverse low-fat cuisine based on her best selling book Easy Exotic. Lakshmi has also hosted a documentary series called Planet Food (broadcast on The Food Network and worldwide Discovery Channel), in which she journeyed to countries such as Spain and India. Padma has also appeared on UPN's Star Trek: Enterprise.\
  • Padma Lakshmi is also an accomplished writer and the author of Easy Exotic for Miramax Books for which she won the International Versailles Event for best cookbook by a first time writer.  The book is a low calorie, low fat ethnic cookbook and is currently in its second printing in soft back.  She has contributed to such magazines as American Vogue, Gourmet  and Harper's Bazaar.

Originally known as the first internationally successful Indian supermodel, Padma Lakshmi started modeling while an exchange student in Spain with Clark University where she received a B.A. in Theater Arts.  She was discovered by a modeling agent while sitting in a café and since has appeared in numerous fashion editorials and walked the runway for the likes of Ralph Lauren, Emmanuel Ungaro and Alberta Ferretti and starred in campaigns for Versus and Roberto Cavalli.  

FILMS

  • From Hollywood to Bollywood, Padma's film career is filled with promise. Her roles in both Glitter and Bollywood production Boom have caught the eye of many.
  • Glitter, and legendary Indian actor Amitabh Bachchan in Boom. To this point, Padma's foreign film credits are more extensive than her U.S. domestic, a fact attributable to her significant world-wide appeal.
  • Padma can be seen in in director Paul Mayeda Berges' newest film Mistress of Spices starring Aishwarya Rai and Dylan McDermott.
  • In 2006, she played Moses' mother in ABC's Ten Commandments. The four hour miniseries stars Omar Sharif, Dougray Scott, and Naveen Andrews.
  • She is also star in BBC 's Sharpe's Challenge opposite Sean Bean. In it, Lakshmi plays the beautiful Indian courtesan Madhuvanthi who becomes a ruler defending her Rajastani province from Sharpe and the Colonialists.
  • Padma's wide and varied TV career has ranged from hosting Italy's highest rated TV show Domenica
  • In on Rai Television to starring in her own cooking show, The Melting Pot — Padma's Passport, on The Food Network in the U.S.A.  
  • Padma has also hosted a documentary series called Planet Food (broadcast on The Food Network and worldwide Discovery Channel), in which she journeyed to countries such as Spain and India.

In April, many critics hailed her performance as Princess Bithia, the Egyptian princess who found the baby Moses in the bulrushes and raised him as her own in ABC's mini-series The Ten Commandments alongside Naveen Andrews (Lost), Omar Sharif and Dougray Scott.  

Over Labor Day weekend, she starred in BBC America's  Sharpe's Challenge opposite Sean Bean. The two-part mini-series, directed by Tom Clegg, is based on Bernard Cornwell's best-selling novels. Padma again attracted much praise, this time as the beautiful Indian courtesan Madhuvanthi who becomes a ruler defending her Rajasthani province from Sharpe and the British Empire.  

On the big screen, she joined Aishwarya Rai and Dylan McDermott in Paul Mayeda Berges' newest film Mistress of Spices.  

Lakshmi's previous acting experience has included two Italian films:  Caribbeans  directed by Lamberto Bava and Sandokan: The Darkness and the Light directed by Sergio Sollima.  In 2001 she played Mariah Carey's diva rival "Sylk"  in  Fox / Columbia Pictures Glitter, directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall.  She also starred in Kaizad Gustad's Boom in 2003.
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