CBS) Who is the most beautiful woman in the world? Half a century ago, Hollywood would have presented her to us. Grace Kelly, Ingrid Bergman or perhaps Elizabeth Taylor. But today? Correspondent Bob Simon reports the woman who currently holds the title, at least according to thousands of Web sites, Internet polls and even Julia Roberts, is someone you've probably never heard of.

Her name is Aishwarya Rai, and she is an actress living and working in Bombay, India. The reigning queen of Indian cinema (and also a classically trained dancer) Rai has starred in 24 films over the last seven years.

That may seem like a lot of movies, but Bollywood, India’s film capital, is famous for churning out more movies a year than Hollywood. Three new films are produced and distributed worldwide every day, attracting a global audience of 5 billion people. That’s twice the reach of Hollywood.

The reason Bollywood films have such universal appeal is because they’re squeaky-clean. There are no sex scenes, not even kissing. Every time you think someone’s going to do it, they'll burst into song instead.

"I'd assume that's really a reflection of our society," Rai says, when asked to explain the films' modesty. "Of course people kiss and of course people have a very healthy love life. This is the land of the Kama Sutra. But nevertheless, in our society you don't really see people around the street corner kissing or being extremely, overtly, physically demonstrative publicly. They do it privately but not publicly."

Unlike some of her Hollywood counterparts, Rai's very much like the women she portrays: wholesome, dutiful and deeply religious. So much so, she insisted we visit her favorite temple for this interview. It’s more than 200 years old and every week more than 100,000 people come from all over India to make offerings and pray to Lord Ganesh, the half-elephant/half-man Hindu god of happiness.

At the temple, Rai started attracting more worshippers than Lord Ganesh.

She says being treated as sort of a goddess in this way, "makes me feel guilty. I'll be very honest. When there's a distraction at the place of worship I kinda get a bit guilty. And I kind of say, 'Lord, forgive me. This isn't intended.'"

Despite the attention, Rai says she doesn’t think much about the way she looks.

"I am really OK with the way I look, It's fine," she says. "All this is transient. I mean, it's really, you know, it changes with time, and that's the external."

Rai never dreamt of being an actress. She grew up in a strict middle-class home, the daughter of a merchant marine and a writer. She was an "A" student on track to becoming an architect, until the “Miss World” pageant came along. She entered because, she says, she wanted to change the way the world sees India.

Rai explains that, "for me, it went beyond being a beauty queen. For me, it was about being the 20-year-old girl from India on international platform and a lot of people actually would assume that I wasn't even educated in India because of the way I'd speak. And they'd be like, 'Have you studied in India? Do you actually speak English out there?' and, I was like, 'This is so interesting that so many people know so little about my country.' and this is exactly what I wanted to do when I set out on this little mission in my head."

At age 21, Rai became Miss World. It didn’t take long after that for her to become the brightest star in Bollywood. Now 30, she’s still a traditional Indian girl - which, by the way, means she still lives with her parents.

"By virtue of my job, I’m traveling," she explains. "You get to spend very little time with your family. We hardly get to meet each other except on the one odd day we really get to spend time, have dinner together. And that's rare, and we cherish it."

Still, Rai considers herself an independent woman, and she doesn’t have anything to prove. She’s an astute businesswoman who negotiates her own contracts, including endorsements for L’Oreal, Coca-Cola and DeBeers diamonds. She is not only one of the wealthiest women in India, but Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people on the planet. When she’s seen in new clothes, it invariably sparks a new fashion trend. Choosing what to wear, she says, is not so much about caring as it is, "just about being open to life and trying different things out."

Right now for Rai, trying different things means going to Hollywood. She’s already got several films lined up. Her first is from the director of "Bend it Like Beckham." It's called "Bride and Prejudice," and it’s a very proper film. But eventually, in Hollywood, India’s “good girl” is bound to run up against something of a cultural hurdle: kissing men on the big screen.

"We'll cross the bridge when we reach it," Rai says. "But yeah. We - let's see. We'll work on the story, work on the scene. I'll work on the part and, and let's see."

Would an onscreen kiss create a scandal for Rai back in India? "It would definitely be a topic of discussion," she says. "They're gonna enjoy it."

Sure, there are people in India who resent sharing their star with America. But, Rai notes, "then again there are so many Indians who have expressed so much of pride. They look at this as such a positive possibility. Because there really hasn't been that strong a representation of the Indian in Hollywood."

With Rai in the vanguard of an Indian invasion, that could change

Ash does fine on Letterman

February 09, 2005 12:14 IST

After all the hype, the change in the scheduling from Wednesday to Tuesday, and thousands of e-mails that cluttered the desi community's mail boxes in the US, David Letterman introduced the AmericaN public -- or least those who stayed up after 11.30 last night -- to the person he described as the biggest movie star in the world.

"The irony is, she is barely known here," he added. "This resets our perspective on the world. It is going to change the way we look at the world."

"Who is it, who is it?" demanded Letterman's sidekick and band leader Paul Shaeffer, as the child in him could not wait any longer.

"Her name is Aushworya Raai," Letterman added. "And she is also the most beautiful woman in the world."

"I can hardly wait," Shaeffer said in his overtly enthusiastic voice, as the audience laughed at the applause signal.

Letterman also explained a little bit about the origins of the word Bollywood ("What is that?" Shaffaer asked, this time trying to sound naïve and ignorant)-- that the letter 'b' came from Bombay and the 'ollywood' portion from the word Hollywood. It did not take much for the audience to laugh again.

And this is how America finally discovered Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai -- not through her January appearances on the prestigious CBS 60 Minutes episode with Bob Simon, where she mostly giggled and rolled her eyes, and the ABC Nightline segment on Bollywood, where she sounded a lot more intelligent.

Rai's short pre-recorded, but uncut segment on the Late Show with David Letterman on CBS -- America's second-ranked late night talk show, after NBC's Jay Leno -- was her only public appearance in New York to promote her foray into Hollywood, Gurinder Chadha's new film Bride And Prejudice, which opens in select American cities on February 11.

A few days before she flew into New York, publicists working with the film's distributor Miramax announced to the entertainment press that Rai was not going to give any one-on-one interviews, conduct no round table conversations with journalists or even address a press conference.

The press day for Bride on Wednesday, February 9, will only feature Chadha and two other actors from her film -- Martin Henderson and Naveen Andrews. This is a very rare occurrence in Hollywood's film marketing strategy. Normally even the biggest stars in Hollywood -- Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and top directors Steven Spielberg, among others -- make themselves available to the press before the release of their films.

"Ash is really tired," Chadha told rediff.com from Los Angeles. "She is coming straight from a shoot." (She has been shooting an item number for Yash Raj Films' Bunty aur Babli, directed by Shaad Ali, with Amitabh and Abhishek Bachchan).

Rai came on the Letterman show ready to take on the world, dressed in a short black dress that reached above her knees, a brown leather jacket and black boots. She appeared nervous, giggling (something she did a lot more on 60 Minutes), but also fairly confident. And there were some moments of brilliant sparks in her.

At one point when Letterman was trying to figure out how she broke into films, Rai, giggled, spoke briefly, and then instead of answering the question -- she shot back one directly at him: "How did you get into doing this?" Letterman looked confused and muttered something and moved on the next question.

Later Rai decided to take on a flirtatious tone -- she fluttered her eyes, put her hand under her chin and gazed directly at Letterman. Flirting always disarms Letterman -- something the likes of Uma Thurman and Madonna have shown in the past. He becomes speechless for a brief moment and that gives the audience enough fodder to laugh.

Letterman tried to gain an upper hand in the show, by suddenly throwing an irrelevant question at Rai: "Did you see the Happy Days reunion?" he asked, as Rai fluttered her eyes one more time and gave a confused look that said 'what is this man talking about?'

The oft repeated question about how she would handle kissing and nudity in Hollywood films was not raised, but Letterman did ask her whether it was common for adult children to live with their parents in India. "We don't have to make appointments to have dinner with our parents," Rai replied.

The desi community in the US will now send out countless more e-mails analysing Rai's less than 10 minute appearance on late night American television. But her handlers and publicists must be thrilled.

Letterman's show was Rai's first real test on handling the pressure of a 'live' show with a large audience. And Ash did fine.