Photo from Instagram/@hwdwalkoffame
Tony and Olivier Award-winning performer honored after a career spanning Manila, Broadway, Disney films and international stages
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Lea Salonga received the 2,855th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Sept. 4, becoming the first Filipina to receive the honor.
The Tony and Olivier Award-winning performer was recognized in the Live Performance category at a ceremony outside the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, adding one of Hollywood’s most visible distinctions to a career spanning Philippine theater, Broadway, London’s West End, film, television and international concert stages.
Television host and journalist Sibley Scoles presided over the ceremony. Actress Ming-Na Wen, singer and actress Brandy, and actor and Broadway performer Darren Criss delivered tributes. Filipino American singer H.E.R. was among those in attendance.
“Long before Hollywood, long before Broadway, there was Manila,” Salonga said as she reflected on a career that began when she was a child performer in the Philippines.
She also paid tribute to her family, recalling how her mother, Ligaya Salonga, helped finance and promote her first album and later managed her career for decades. Salonga also thanked her brother, conductor Gerard Salonga, and her son, Nic.
The Manila International Film Festival nominated Salonga for the Walk of Fame honor. She was selected for the Class of 2026 by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce’s Walk of Fame selection panel from hundreds of nominations, with the selections later ratified by the chamber’s board.
Salonga made her professional stage debut at age 7 in a Philippine production of “The King and I.” Her international breakthrough came as Kim in the original London production of “Miss Saigon,” a role she later brought to Broadway.
She won the Laurence Olivier Award for her London performance and the 1991 Tony Award for best actress in a musical, becoming the first Asian performer to win in that Tony category.
Her Broadway credits have since included “Les Misérables,” “Flower Drum Song,” “Allegiance,” “Once on This Island,” “Here Lies Love” and “Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends.”
Salonga also became familiar to generations of Disney audiences as the singing voice of Princess Jasmine in the 1992 animated film “Aladdin” and Fa Mulan in “Mulan” and “Mulan II.” Disney named her a Disney Legend in 2011.
The Walk of Fame ceremony brought several strands of her career together. Wen provided Mulan’s speaking voice in the 1998 animated film while Salonga performed the character’s songs. Criss spoke about Salonga’s influence on him as a performer of Filipino heritage.
The dedication took place during the third Manila International Film Festival in Los Angeles. MIFF also selected Salonga as the inaugural recipient of its Icon Award at the festival’s closing-night gala.
Salonga closed her remarks by signaling that the recognition was not a farewell to the stage.
“And the best part is I’m not done yet,” she said.
