Lea Salonga
Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga (Lea Salonga) was born on February 2, 1971. Her parents are
Ligaya Imutan and Feliciano Genuino Salonga, and she has a younger brother named Gerard.
Lea is not just a good actor and singer but as a child she finished primary and secondary education
as salutatorian and valedictorian, respectively. As a college freshman, she studied biology at Ateneo
de Manila University, and when she auditioned for Miss Saigon, she intended to have a medical
career.
She is a filipina singer and actress primarily known for her works in theater. She has starred in
different musicals and broadways that’s why she is acknowledged as our Broadway Star. Primarily,
Lea began singing at family parties, her cousin encouraged her to audition for The King and I, where
she made her professional debut in 1978 at the age of seven. She played the title role of Annie in
1980, and appeared in different productions like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Paper Moon, The Rose
Tattoo, The Sound of Music and many more.
In 1981, Lea released her first album, Small Voice, and made her film debut in comedy film Tropang
Bulilit. As a young performer, Lea received a Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS)
award nomination for Best Child Actress and three Aliw Awards for Best Child Performers in different
years. In 1985, Lea and her brother, Gerard took part in the 8th Metro Manila Popular Music Festival
as the interpreters for the song entry titled “Musika, Lata, Sipol at La La La” which won the second
prize in Amateur Division. As a teenager, Lea continued to act in different films.
In 1989, Lea originated the leading role of Kim in the debut production of the musical Miss Saigon in
London. For her initial audition in Manila, 17 years old Lea Salonga chose to sing Alain Boublil and
Claude Schonberg’s On My Own. Lea has sometimes credited the song as a starting point of her
international career. After her rendition, she was asked if she had prepared another song to perform.
Although she has not prepared one, she sang The Greatest Love of All. At her first callback audition,
Lea was naked to sing Sun and Moon and The Movie in My Mind that impressed the audition panel.
She got through a different audition and after months, she was offered the lead role.
For her performance as Kim, Lea won the 1990 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress in a
Musical, becoming one of the youngest winners of the award. On December 21, 1990, Salonga
performed with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, Ateneo College Glee Club, and guest singer
Robert Seña in a homecoming concert in Manila entitled A Miss Called Lea, which was later
broadcast on television. She also received a Presidential Award of Merit from President Corazon
Aquino for her services to the arts.
When Miss Saigon opened on Broadway in 1991, she again played the role of Kim, winning the
Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Theatre World awards and becoming the second-youngest
actress and first actress of Asian descent to win a Tony Award. During the production transfer from
West End to Broadway, a controversy erupted over Salonga's citizenship. The Actors' Equity
Association (AEA) initially prevented her from reprising the role, wishing to give priority to
Asian-American performers. However, Cameron Mackintosh claimed he could not find a satisfactory
replacement for Salonga, and an arbitrator later reversed the AEA ruling. In 1999, Salonga returned
to reprise the role of Kim on Broadway, then again in 2001, at the age of 29 and after finishing the
Manila run of the musical, this time to close the Broadway production.
In 1992, she performed the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in Disney's animated film Aladdin.
Later that year, Salonga's agent submitted her to an audition for the leading role of Eliza Doolittle in
the upcoming Broadway revival of My Fair Lady. However, the casting director for the production
refused to see her because of her race. Shortly after, Salonga was contacted by Cameron
Mackintosh to join the Broadway production of Les Misérables. In 1993, Salonga played the role of
Éponine in the Broadway production of Les Misérables, becoming the first Asian actress to perform
the role on Broadway. She performed the song "A Whole New World" from Aladdin with Brad Kane
at the 65th Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles, where the song won an Oscar, having already
won a Golden Globe Award.
From 1997 to 2000, Salonga did recordings and concerts in the Philippines, another engagement in
London, and a few returns to Miss Saigon in London and on Broadway. After her final stint in Miss
Saigon for its closing on Broadway in 2001, Salonga recreated the role of Lien Hughes, initially
played by Ming-Na Wen, in the soap opera As the World Turns. From 2003 to 2004, Salonga did her
first "all-Filipino" concert in Manila called Songs from Home, which later won her an Aliw Award as
Entertainer of the Year.
She was one of the four coaches, together with apl.de.ap, Sarah Geronimo, and Bamboo Mañalac,
for the ABS-CBN program, The Voice of the Philippines, which premiered in June 2013. In 2014, she
returned for the second season of The Voice of the Philippines and joined the new Philippine version
of The Voice Kids, on which she has appeared for three seasons.
For the following years, she continued to play in different musicals, released different albums, and
perform in broadways and receive lots of awards. This includes a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier
Award, in addition to nominations for two Grammy Awards. She was conferred with the Presidential
Medal of Merit in 1990 and the Order of Lakandula in 2007, and was honored as a Disney Legend in
2011.
