Sushmita was born in a Bengali family to Shubeer Sen, a former Indian Air Force Wing Commander and Subhra Sen, worked as a fashion artist and jewelry designer. She has a brother, Rajeev Sen and a sister, Neelam Sen. She grew up in Delhi but almost led a nomadic life moving from one place to another due to his father’s profession. She studied in schools in Nagpur and Jorhat, and finally at Air Force Golden Jubilee Institute studying English, and had career plans in journalism.
But destiny willed otherwise, and she end up creating history in the world of fashion and entertainment becoming the first Indian woman to win the title of Miss Universe (1994).
With advantageous height, she was in modeling before taking part in Femina Miss India contest (1994). She got the opportunity to be the part of the contest but when the participants heard that Aishwarya Rai is taking part in the contest, almost twenty two participants withdraw their candidature and Sushmita was one of them. But her mother encouraged her to take up the challenge, and finally a tie-breaking question that got Sen the chance to represent India at the Miss Universe Pageant, held in Manila, Philippines.
With highly respected title on head, she was heartily welcomed to the film industry and she sidelined her dreams of becoming a journalist and pursued her career as an actress. Though single, she adopted a girl child, Renee in the year 2000.
Career in Movies
She entered the filmy world with a debut in Tamil movie Ratchakan, which was not rated good at box office. Then she made her Bollywood debut with Dastak in 1996, where she played the victim of a stalker, but the movie failed to hit the box office. However, it was her next venture after two years in David Dhawan's movie Biwi No.1, where she did a comic role as Rupali, that hit the box office and she bagged the Filmfare Best Supporting Actress Award in 1999 for her role. In the same year, she appeared in Ahathian directed Sirf Tum opposite Sanjay Kapoor and she was proved to be a winner in this movie too.
Another successful hit was multi starrer romantic movie Bas Itna Sa Khwab Hai (2001) starred alongside Abhishek Bacchan, Rani Mukherjee, Jackie Shroff, Gulsan Grover. Filhaal (2002), another movie directed by Meghna Gulzar brought rave reviews to her credit for her convincing portrayal of the character in the film.
One of her biggest hits ever was Main Hoon Na (2004), in which she starred as Shah Rukh Khan's love interest. Her other movies are Main Aisa Hi Hoon opposite Ajay Devgan, as a lawyer, Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya, where she played the lead opposite Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif and essayed the role of Ingrid Bergman, Chingaari (2005) as a prostitute, Gulel (2006) and Manish Gupta directed Karma, Confessions and Holi (2006) opposite Drena DeNiro and Naomi Campbell, Ram Gopal Varma ki Aag (2007) etc.
Besides doing films, she has been chosen as a brand ambassador by SWISS luxury watchmaker Tag Heuer, Procter & Gamble’s Pantene shampoo, Kiah diamond, and Coca Cola.
