Shahrukh Khan

Shahrukh Khan  was born in 1965 to Muslim  parents of Pathan descent in New Delhi, India.  His father, Taj Mohammed Khan, was an Indian independence activist from Peshawar, British India. According to Khan, his paternal grandfather was originally from Afghanistan.  His mother, Lateef Fatima, was the adopted daughter of Major General Shah Nawaz Khan of the Janjua Rajput clan, who served as a General in the Indian National Army of Subash Chandra Bose. Khan's father came to New Delhi from Qissa Khawani Bazaar in Peshawar before the partition of India,  while his mother's family came from Rawalpindi, British India.  Khan has an elder sister named Shehnaz. After the death of his parents, Khan moved to Mumbai in 1991. In that same year, before any of his films were released, he married Gauri Chibber, a Hindu, in a traditional Hindu wedding ceremony on 25 October 1991. They have two children, son Aryan (b. 1997) and daughter Suhana b. 2000. According to Khan, while he strongly believes in Allah, he also values his wife's religion. At home, his children follow both religions, with the Qur'an being situated next to the Hindu deities.

Shah Rukh Khan, is an Indian film actor and a prominent Bollywood figure, as well as a film producer and television host. Khan began his career appearing in several television serials in the late 1980s. He made his film debut in Deewana (1992). Since then, he has been part of numerous commercially successful films and has earned critical acclaim for many of his performances. Khan has won fourteen Film fare Awards for his work in Indian films, eight of which are in the Best Actor category a record.    

Based on a true story, and set against the backdrop of perceptions on Islam post 11 September attacks, My Name Is Khan stars Khan as Rizwan Khan, a Muslim man suffering from Asperger syndrome who sets out on a journey across America on a mission to meet the country's President and clear his name. Upon release, the film received positive reviews from critics and became the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all time in the overseas market. Khan won his eighth Filmfare Award for Best Actor for his portrayal, threby joining Dilip Kumar as the record holder in this category. He is currently filming for Anubhav Sinha's science fiction Ra.One opposite Kareena Kapoor, which is due for release on June 3, 2011.

 Khan studied acting under celebrated Theatre Director Barry John at Delhi's Theatre Action Group (TAG). In 2007, John commented thus on his former pupil that, "The credit for the phenomenally successful development and management of Shahrukh's career goes to the superstar himself." Khan made his acting debut in 1988 when he appeared in the television series, Fauji, playing the role of Commando Abhimanyu Rai.  In 1993, Khan won acclaim for his performances in villainous roles as an obsessive lover and a murderer, respectively, in the box office hits, Darr and Baazigar.  In Khan's entry in Encyclopedia Britannica's "Encyclopedia of Hindi Cinema" it was stated that "he defied the image of the conventional hero in both these films and created his own version of the revisionist hero."  Darr marked his first collaboration with renowned film-maker Yash Chopra and his banner Yash Raj Films, the largest production company in Bollywood. Baazigar, which saw Khan portraying an ambiguous avenger who murders his girlfriend, shocked its Indian audience with an unexpected violation of the standard Bollywood formula.

                                                       

In 2006, Khan collaborated with Karan Johar for the fourth time with the melodrama movie Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. It did well in India and much more so in the overseas market, becoming the biggest Bollywood hit in the overseas market of all-time.  His second release that year saw him playing the title role in the action film Don: The Chase Begins Again, a remake of the 1978 hit Don. The movie was a success. In 2007, Khan replaced Amitabh Bachchan as the host of the third series of the popular game show Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.  The previous had hosted the show for five years from 2000–05. On 22 January 2007, Kaun Banega Crorepati aired with Khan as the new host  and later ended on 19 April 2007. Khan has been awarded several honours which includes the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian award from the Government of India in 2005. n April 2007, a life-size wax statue of Khan was installed at Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, London. Another statue was installed at the Musée Grévin in Paris, the same year.  During the same year, he was accorded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of the Arts and Literature) award by the French government for his “exceptional career”. There are also statues in Hong Kong  and New York.