History as she tells it
SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
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Former Miss World Diana Hayden makes her small screen debut with The History Channel's "Biography" series. The brainy beauty says this is just the beginning.
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Photo: R.V.Moorthy.
Recording life as it is: Diana Hayden brings history alive on TV.
Any day, Diana Hayden is a cut above the usual beauty queen story. Despite being a head turner of a Miss World, and with a coveted accent that needs an Angrez to give her competition, (the right `assets' for a Bollywood sizzler these days) she has stayed clear, for quite a period, of Tinsel Town which usually presents its fresh faces the unwritten clause: be `sporty enough.'
Now, the Hyderabad-born beauty with brains has found her niche - television.
Hosting The History Channel's Biography series till this July, she is chatting up a list of Who's Who, like Pervez Musharraf, Natwar Singh, Vladimir Putin, The Dalai Lama and Tiger Woods to name just a few. At 10 p.m. from Monday through Friday, she is found waxing eloquent in her inimitable style, making viewers privy to interesting anecdotes about Hitler, Gandhi, Arafat, Castro, Putin and Tom Hanks, etc. Appealing indeed to learn from the show about 10-year-old Castro's letter to President Roosevelt seeking a 10 dollar note because he had never seen one; about Arafat not missing his Tom & Jerry shows for any visitor; Hitler's one-time ambition to be a priest; the Dalai Lama's fascination for repairing watches; the Russian President's black belt in Judo.
"I needed to find the right pigeonhole. I have to be comfortable in doing what I do, so I guess I couldn't do what most first-timers end up doing in Bollywood. But television is different. I am having fun here," the lady states. By the way, Diana is the first Indian to be hired by this international channel to host a show.
"It's a great feeling. I love watching these types of channels. So when The History Channel gave me the offer, I couldn't say no," relates Diana. The channel, she says, after short-listing three names to host Biography, had sent across in-house e-mails, and almost all voted for her.
Crossing the bridge
Armed with a degree in Shakespearean Drama from London, Diana kicked off her Bollywood career with Khalid Mohamed's Tehzeeb in 2003. But her first big venture was Ab Bas last year. A film on a woman who could not take any more of a stifling relationship in her stride.
"But the producer thought of selling sex first rather than the story. So it attracted all the wrong crowd and when they didn't find what they had bought their tickets for, Ab Bas sank," explains Diana. So, once-bitten-twice-shy Diana these days is looking at TV for succour.
"After finishing the shoot at midnight, when I reach home with swollen feet, I don't feel so tired. Still at that time, I want to speak to someone about how the day went. So, I guess I am contented," says the actress in her husky tones. Though her contract with The History Channel gets over in July this year, Diana is serious about the small screen now. "I am doing Ada and one other film. But ideally, I would not mind doing an Oprah Winfrey type of talk show on Indian television," states Diana. And on holidays, she would not mind spending hours with children, "with an eye on the education of street kids."
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