Broadway legend Lea Salonga honoured with Hollywood Walk of Fame star

LOS ANGELES: Broadway legend Lea Salonga, also known as the singing voice of Disney’s princesses Mulan and Jasmine, has been honoured with a Hollywood Walk of Fame star.  Lea also created history by becomimg the first Filipina to receive this honour, as per Variety.

On receiving the star, Lea said, “Most of my work is in musical theater. So even though musical theater does reach Los Angeles and Hollywood, it’s not something that I thought would actually happen. It’s not like the kind of Hollywood career that, say, somebody like Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn or any of those icons of the screen or television have had. This is something that I did not foresee.”

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“It centers on my culture. It centers Philippine myth and folklore. We get to share our mythological creatures with the bigger world. I don’t think it’s something that I ever thought I would have seen,” Salonga added.

Salonga was 17 years old when she landed “Miss Saigon” in the original West End production of the show before transferring to Broadway. She auditioned with a performance of “On My Own” from “Les Misérables” followed by “The Greatest Love of All.”

After several call backs, including a trip to London, “I was told, ‘You’re in the show, but we don’t know what role we’re going to give you,’” Salonga recalled. “Never mind that at this point the only songs I was learning were the ones sung by Kim. But I was like, ‘Whatever.’ I was pre-med in college. I had a life. So if you decide you’re going to put me in the ensemble, I’ll just be like, ‘Thank you, but no thank you.’”

Salonga’s work as Kim earned her a Laurence Olivier Award and in 1991, she became the first Asian actress to win a Tony Award and the second-youngest actress to win for best performance by a leading actress in a musical. (ANI)