He made a name for himself with sweet and romantic roles. Lately, it seems like Salman Khan's mission in life is to prove what a very good actor he is. Son of screenwriter Salim Khan (who co-wrote classics like Sholay, Deewar, Zanjeer and Mr. India), Salman rose to fame as a gentle Romeo in the 1989 blockbuster Maine Pyar Kiya. He later starred in some of the biggest hits of the 90s, including Hum Aapke Hain Koun...!, Karan Arjun and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. In recent years, however, its off-screen drama has proven more gripping than any film. He went from one ordeal to another with the law, the media and his girlfriend, Aishwarya Rai, who became a Miss World actress. Chroniclers deplored his bad-boy ways. Religious fundamentalists protested his taste for women (he was Muslim; Aishwarya, Hindu). But from the start, his diehard fans swore he was simply misunderstood. He is now charged with manslaughter. And even those fans may have reached their limits. The fall of 1998 marked the beginning of Salman's legal troubles. While in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, to shoot the song sequence 'Mhare Hivda' for Yashraj's Hum Saath Saath Hain, he and several of his teammates went hunting in the nearby Thar Desert. The group wandered into a bishnoi reserve, where Salman shot a black deer, a member of an endangered species whose hunting is illegal. The Bishnoi – a tribe that believes in the sanctity of all life, and not at all in the sanctity of movie stars – physically arrested the actor, who was then thrown in jail by an unsympathetic magistrate. The scandal sent journalists reaching for their pens, which they then used to draw an indelible black mark next to the actor's name. The media then turned its attention to his troubled relationship with Aishwarya Rai, whom he began dating after starring opposite her in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, 1999. Rumors were already circulating that Khan had physically assaulted a former girlfriend, Pakistani actress Somy Ali. Now, rumors of discontent in the Rai family have fueled similar stories regarding his behavior with Aishwarya. The media gleefully reported on Salman's late-night visits to Aishwarya's apartment: neighbors claimed he had knocked on Aishwarya's door for hours, shouting idle and angry demands for let him in. Yet the rumors had no proof until early 2002, when Aishwarya's parents filed a complaint. with Mumbai Police, alleging that an inebriated Khan broke windows and furniture in Aishwarya's house and made threats against the Rai family in general.