Lea Salonga was innate Maria Lea Carmen Imutan Salonga to Feliciano Salonga & Ligaya Imutan. She spent a 1st six years of her childhood inside Angeles City, Pampanga, before withdraw to Manila, Philippines.

She & her personal come devout Roman Catholics.

Career
At a age of 7, she manufactured her agent debut by starring in the play The King and I by Repertory Philippines. She has since appeared inside more plays, like: 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 sales person music career at a age of tenner whilst she recorded her 1st album, Small Voice, which received a gold record. She has besides hosted her have musical tv program, Love, Lea, & opened for Stevie Question when you took his concert within Manila. At age Xiii, she won 3 Aliw Awards for Right Little one Entertainer from either 1981 to 1983. Within 1983, her second-year album, Lea was freed.

Her large breakthrough come once she was selected to play a leading role of Kim in the musical comedy Miss Saigon in 1989. A play, according to a plot of Madame Butterfly and set in a period of the final times of the Vietnam War, tells the story of Kim, the unfortunate Vietnamese girl, and Chris, an American soldier, who fall gaga sustaining every more. For this performance, Lea Salonga was given a Laurence Olivier Award for even Best Actress around the Musical comedy or Amusement for the month 1989/1990. From either its original London home, Miss Saigon moved to Broadway. Lea Salonga afterward garnered a Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards.

Within 1993, Lea Salonga played a role of street street child 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 a song won an Oscar. around the equivalent season she freed her self-titled international debut album by using Atlantic Records, which has never again pt & gold in area of Southeast Asia.

Lea so played within various musical theater productions around a Philippines & Singapore. Within 1997, I personally'd Prefer to Teach the World to Sing was freed to gold sales. It was followed higher by Lea... Infatuated inside 1998. By memory followed deuce years late, each albums reaching multiple pt status.

Lea was besides a singing voice of Jasmine for Aladdin (1992) & Fa Mulan for Mulan (1998), films by Disney.

Inside 2001 and 2003, Lea replaced Ming-Na after a long absence in the role of Lien Hughes on the soap opera As the World Turns. She has influenced Filipino singers like Lalaine and Cassie Steele