Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing films in regional languages. Bollywood is the largest film producer in India and one of the largest centers of film production in the world.

Bollywood is formally referred to as Hindi cinema. There has been a growing presence of Indian English in dialogue and songs as well. It is common to see films that feature dialogue with English words (also known as Hinglish), phrases, or even whole sentences.

The name "Bollywood" is a portmanteau derived from Bombay (the former name for Mumbai) and Hollywood, the center of the American film industry. However, unlike Hollywood, Bollywood does not exist as a physical place. Though some deplore the name, arguing that it makes the industry look like a poor cousin to Hollywood, it has its own entry in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Kishore Kumar (4 August 1929 – 13 October 1987), born Abhas Kumar Kanjilal Ganguly was an Indian film playback singer and an actor who also worked as lyricist, composer, producer, director, screenwriter and scriptwriter. Kishore Kumar sang in many Indian languages including Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Assamese, Gujarati, Kannada, Bhojpuri, Malayalam and Oriya. He won 8 Filmfare Awards for Best Male Playback Singer and holds the record for most number of Filmfare Awards won in that category. He was awarded the "Lata Mangeshkar Award" by the Madhya Pradesh government and from that year onwards, the Madhya Pradesh Government initiated a new award called the "Kishore Kumar Award" for contributions to Hindi cinema.

Kishore Kumar was born into the Ganguly family in Khandwa, Central Provinces and Berar (now in Madhya Pradesh) as Abhas Kumar Ganguly. His father Kunjalal Ganguly (Gangopadhya) was a lawyer. His mother Gouri Devi came from a wealthy Bengali family. Kishore was the youngest of four siblings, the other three being Ashok Kumar (the eldest), Sati Devi, and Anoop Kumar. The composer Bappi Lahiri is also related to Kishore Kumar on his mother's side.

Alia Bhatt (born 15 March 1993)^{[citation needed]} is an Indian actress in Bollywood.

Alia is the daughter of director, producer, and screenwriter Mahesh Bhatt and Soni Razdan, a film actress and director. She has one sister Shaheen Bhatt, a stepsister Pooja Bhatt, and a stepbrother Rahul Bhatt. Actor Emraan Hashmi and director Mohit Suri are her cousins and producer Mukesh Bhatt is her uncle. Alia has completed high-school from Jamnabai Narsee School in Mumbai.^{[citation needed]}

Bhatt has acted as a child artist in the film Sangharsh (1999), starring Akshay Kumar and Preity Zinta. She played the younger Zinta in the film.

She started her career in Bollywood as a lead role in the upcoming film Student of the Year where she stars opposite newcomers Siddharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan (David Dhawan's son). The film is directed and produced by Karan Johar and co-produced by Shahrukh Khan. The film is expected to release on October 19th, 2012.

Poonam Pandey (Hindi: पूनम पांडे; born 11 March 1991) is one of the Kingfisher Calendar girls for year 2011. Poonam was the first Kingfisher Calendar girl who gave a nude image for a magazine.

She first came in the limelight when she vowed to shed all their clothes if India lifts the World Cup trophy. She follows in the footsteps of Paraguay's Larissa Riquelme and Argentinian Luciana Salazar who promised to strip if their football teams won the FIFA World Cup. Though being a bit late she did pose nude moments after the showdown of the Indian Premier League season-5. She made her debut on television as a contestant in Fear Factor - Khatron Ke Khiladi Season 4 which was hosted by Akshay Kumar.

‘Jism’ director Amit Saxena has confirmed that he will have Poonam Pandey as the female lead in his forthcoming film, which he says will be a coming of age film. Not too long ago when Pandey claimed on her Twitter account about her Bollywood debut, Saxena denied. However, now he has cleared the air. While speaking freely about the project, Amit said, “Yes, we are working together in a coming of age script. Poonam is the lead actor in the film.”

Karisma Kapoor (born on 25 June 1974), often informally referred to as Lolo, is an Indian actress appearing in Bollywood films. Born into a family where her parents, Randhir Kapoor and Babita, were actors, Kapoor made her acting debut at the age of seventeen with Prem Qaidi in 1991. She subsequently featured in several commercially successful films such as Jigar (1992), Anari (1993), Raja Babu, Suhaag (1994), Coolie No. 1, Gopi Kishan (1995), Saajan Chale Sasural & Jeet (1996).

In 1996, Kapoor earned her first Filmfare Award for Best Actress for Raja Hindustani, her biggest commercial success, and later received the National Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the romantic drama Dil To Pagal Hai (1997). She went on to play the lead female role in the critically acclaimed projects, Fiza (2000) and Zubeidaa (2001), for which she earned the Best Actress and Best Actress (Critics) trophies at the Filmfare ceremony. Having done so, Kapoor has established herself as one the leading actresses of Hindi cinema.