Lisa Rani Ray, (লিসা রে)(Bengali) born 4 April 1972, is a Canadian actress, model, host, philanthropist and social activist.
Lisa Ray was born in Toronto to a Hindu Bengali Indian father and a Polish mother and grew up in the suburb of Etobicoke. She spent some time of her chilhood at Shyambazar (Kolkata). She excelled academically, doing five years of high school in four, while attending three different high schools: Etobicoke Collegiate Institute, Richview Collegiate Institute, and Silverthorn Collegiate Institute.
She spoke Polish to her maternal grandmother and watched movies of Federico Fellini and Satyajit Ray with her cinephile dad. Ray was spotted by an agent in a crowd during a family vacation in India when she was 16, when she began modelling.
On 23 June 2009, Ray was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a cancer of the white blood cells known as plasma cells, which produce antibodies. It is a rare disease. In April 2010, she announced that she was cancer-free, after a stem cell transplant. As multiple myeloma is an incurable disease, Ray is not completely cured of the disease In February 2012, Ray announced her engagement to management consultant Jason Dehni. On 20 October 2012, Ray and Dehni (then a banking executive and philanthropist) were married in the Napa Valley, in California.
