Kirron Kher

Kirron Kher, born June 14, 1955, is an Indian theatre, film and television actress and a TV talk show host. She was born in Mumbai to Sikh parents, and brought up in Chandigarh, Punjab, where she studied at the Panjab University, Chandigarh. Kirron has a sister and also a brother, who was a painter Amandeep Singh, who passed away in 2003. Kirron Kher made her film debut in 1983 in the Punjabi feature film Aasra Pyar Da and received rave reviews for her performance. She then acted in theatre, with the play Saalgirah from by playwright Feroz Khan, shortly after she hosted three television shows. Starting with Purushkshetra on Zee TV which got her much acclaim for bringing out the discussion of sexuality to the forum for the first time, while highlighting women's issues at the same time, Kiron Kher Today and Jagte Raho with Kiron Kher, before doing Bollywood films. She starred in the Bollywood fil Karan Arjun (1995), followed by the acclaimed film by Shyam Benegal, Sardari Begum (1996), which won her the Special Jury Award at the 1997 National Film Awards. In 2000, she appeared in film director, Rituparno Ghosh's Bengali film Bariwali 1999, to critical acclaim and she won the National Film Award for Best Actress for the film. For her role in the film, Khamosh Pani (2003) she portrayed the plight of a woman abducted during the partition of India, for which she won the Best Actress Award, at Locarno International Film Festival, Switzerland. In October 2004 she made a guest appearance along with her husband, in the American TV series ER playing Parminder Nagra's mother, Mrs. Rasgotra, in episode Damaged (Season 11) (2004). To date she has starred in over 20 major Hindi films, she also suggested the title of one of the biggest Hindi films of all time, Dilwale Dilhunia Le Jayenge (1995). In 2003, she changed her name from "Kiron" to "Kirron" due to beliefs in numerology.