Parminder Nagra

London, Feb. 9: Parminder Nagra, the Punjabi girl from Leicester who moved to LA to seek fame and fortune a decade ago, is splitting from James Stenson, her English photographer husband after less than three years of marriage.

There was a time when she was a simple, desi girl who caught the bus like everyone else, friends say.

Then she moved to America to play the part of an Indian doctor, Neela Rasgotra, in the Chicago hospital drama, ER. She did 129 episodes from 2003 to 2009, probably getting paid between $500,000 to $1m for each episode.

It was the kind of money that no actress from Britain – certainly not one with an Indian origin background — could afford to turn down.

After making a name for herself as the football mad “Jess” (Jasminder) Bhamra in Gurinder Chadha’s hugely successful Bend It Like Beckham, she jumped at the chance when offered a role in ER. It gave her worldwide exposure although artistically it cannot be said to have extended her considerable acting talents.

Those who know her well say her best work was achieved in England, doing theatre, for example, for Tamasha Theatre Company.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Indian independence in 1997, Tamasha put on a series of interconnected plays, A Tainted Dawn. In one, Parminder, who has a slight figure, was cast as a boy who is left behind in Pakistan when his Hindu parents are forced to flee across the border into India.

This was arguably Parminder’s finest performance. The “boy” is brought up by a kindly, childless Muslim couple, Years later when he is located and taken back to India, he is so traumatised by local Hindu zealots that he seeks solace by taking out a prayer mat and reading the namaz.

With passing years, Parminder more or less lost touched with England and became more “Americanised”. Journalists had to go through a ring of PR people to talk to her, if at all they were lucky enough to be granted an interview – a process currently also changing Freida Pinto beyond recognition.

Friends noticed a change in Parminder when she paid one of her visits back to England.

“She looked very glossy, she wore expensive clothes, she had a very stylish haircut, she looked great,” noted an actress friend, who was not jealous of Parminder’s success even though she herself was struggling to find work in England.

When ER ended, Parminder found work on another series, Alcatraz, named after a famous American prison, in which she plays Lucy Bannerjee, a technician.

But Parminder is not the first actress to discover there is a price for buying into the LA lifestyle.

The American celebrity website, TMZ, which knows little of Parminder’s career before she moved to the US, reported: “Alcatraz star Parminder Nagra — the main chick from Bend It Like Beckham — is kicking her husband to the curb ... TMZ has learned.”

It said: “36-year-old Nagra has filed for divorce from photographer James Stenson ... seeking to end her three year marriage. According to the divorce papers, obtained by TMZ, Nagra cites ‘irreconcilable differences’ for the split.”

It added: “The two dated for 7 years before tying the knot and have a 2 year-old son. The wedding was attended by a bunch of stars ... including Nagra’s former ER co-star John Stamos ... who played drums at the reception. Sad.”

Parminder and her boyfriend probably would not have married had it not been for pressure from her conservative family back in Leicester. It is one thing for stars to live together in LA; quite another for the family to be able to show their face at the local gurdwara.