Early years

Lea Salonga was born Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga to Feliciano Genuino Salonga and Ligaya Alcantara Imutan, who were never legally married. She spent the first six years of her childhood in Angeles City, Pampanga, before moving to Manila.

Career

At the age of seven, she made her professional debut in the Philippines by performing in the musical The King and I by Repertory Philippines. She has since appeared in other productions, such as: Annie, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Fiddler on the Roof, The Rose Tattoo, The Sound Of Music, The Goodbye Girl, Paper Moon, The Fantasticks, and Flower Drum Song.

She began her professional music career at the age of ten when she recorded her first album, Small Voice, which received a Gold record in the Philippines. She has also hosted her own musical television show, Love, Lea, and opened for Stevie Wonder during his 1998 concert in Manila. At age 13, she won three Aliw Awards for Best Child Performer from 1981 to 1983. In 1983, her sophomore album, "Lea" was released. The young Lea also appeared in several popular family-oriented Filipino films in the late 1980s such as Ninja Kids, Captain Barbell and Pik Pak Boom.

Her biggest breakthrough came when she was selected to play the leading role of Kim in the musical Miss Saigon in 1989.

For her audition with the composers of "Miss Saigon", Lea Salonga chose to sing Boublil and Schönberg's "On My Own" from "Les Miserables". The members of the panel were "bowled over" by Lea's rendition of the song.

For her outstanding performance, Lea Salonga was given the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Musical for the 1989/1990 season. From its original London home, Miss Saigon moved to Broadway in 1991. Lea Salonga subsequently garnered the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards for the same role.

In 1993, Lea Salonga played the role of street waif Eponine in the Broadway production of Les Misérables, then flew to Los Angeles to perform the song "A Whole New World" (of Disney's Aladdin) at the 65th Annual Academy Awards, where the song won an Oscar. (Salonga sang the song in the movie as the singing voice of Princess Jasmine.) In the same year she released her self-titled international debut album with Atlantic Records, which sold slowly in the USA but went platinum in the Philippines and sold 3 million copies worldwide. In 1995 Lea Salonga performed as Geri Riordan, a 18 year old adopted Vietnamese-American child in the movie Redwood Curtain, which starred John Lithgow and Jeff Daniels.

Lea Salonga was invited by Sir Cameron Mackintosh to play the role of Eponine for the 10th Anniversary concert of "Les Miserables" at London's Royal Albert Hall. Lea performed as part of a "dream cast" composed of Colm Wilkinson, Michael Ball, Judy Kuhn, and Philip Quast.

Lea then played in various musical theater productions around the Philippines and Singapore. She notably starred in foreign productions as Sandy in Grease, Sonia Walsk in They're Playing Our Song, The Witch in Into The Woods, and Lizzie in Baby. In 1997, "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" was released to gold sales in the Philippines. It was followed up by "Lea... In Love" in 1998. "By Heart" followed two years later, both albums reaching multiple platinum status in the Philippines. In 2001, Ms. Salonga had a grand homecoming via the Manila production of Miss Saigon staged at the cavernous Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Lea's Disney film credits include the singing voice of Jasmine for Aladdin (1992), and Fa Mulan for Mulan (1998), as well as the voice of Mrs. Kusakabe (Satsuki and Mei's mother) in Disney's 2005 English dub of Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro.

In 2001 and again in 2003, Lea played the role of Lien Hughes on the soap opera As the World Turns, which was originally played by Ming-Na Wen many years before.

In February and March 2005, Lea played her first US concert tour in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Atlantic City, and Chicago. Dates in Washington, D.C., and Norfolk, Virginia followed in July 2005.

On November 7, 2005, she performed to a sold out crowd at NYC's Carnegie Hall for the benefit of Diverse City Theater Company. Lea is only the second Filipino to perform at the venue.

Lea is one of the most popular artists featured by Internet broadcaster PhilRadio International.

She is one the Philippines' Best Selling Female Artist of All Time with sales of 19 million.

Date of birth (location)
   22 February 1971
   Manila, Philippines
Nickname
   Lei
   Tata
   Manang
   Pride of the Philippines
Height
   5' 2½" (1.59 m)
Spouse
   Robert Charles Chien (10 January 2004 - present) 1 child