By Benjamin Cuaresma
MANILA — Filipino theater and screen icon Lea Salonga has added another historic milestone to her career, becoming the first Filipina to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Salonga was honored during a ceremony in Hollywood on Sept. 4, nearly five decades after she made her stage debut in Manila as a seven-year-old in The King and I.
The award places Salonga among the Hollywood Walk of Fame’s most celebrated honorees as its 2,885th entertainer, marking a distinction no other Filipina had previously achieved.
In a social media post following the ceremony, Salonga shared highlights of the event, including portions of the speech in which she reflected on the extraordinary path that began on a Manila stage and eventually brought her to Hollywood Boulevard.
“Long before Hollywood, long before Broadway, there was Manila,” Salonga said, recalling her childhood introduction to theater.
She imagined what her seven-year-old self would have thought had she been told that almost 50 years later she would be standing on Hollywood Boulevard before the iconic theater, surrounded by family, friends and colleagues, to receive her own star.
Her response, she recalled, would have been: “Ha, what’s that?”
Salonga said the recognition represented a career that had taken her to places she never expected to reach and introduced her to people who shaped her professional journey.
But she made clear that the honor was not solely hers.
Although the star bears only her name, Salonga used her speech to recognize the people behind her success, beginning with her family and extending to the teachers, directors, composers, lyricists, fellow performers, musicians, production crews and representatives who helped build her career.
She also singled out the audiences who supported her work throughout the years.
“There’s something funny about a star like this, because there’s only room for one name—mine,” Salonga said. “But no career is ever the work of just one person.”
She said that if the star were large enough, it would carry the names of all those who contributed to her journey.
For Salonga, the Hollywood recognition thus became more than another career achievement. It also marked the culmination of a journey that began in Manila and eventually carried a young Filipino performer to Broadway, Hollywood and now the Walk of Fame.
Her Sept. 4 induction formally added her name to the landmark along Hollywood Boulevard—and made her the first Filipina to earn the distinction.
ia/xf
