THAT Lea Salonga has a memory like an elephant. Warming up for the reappearance here next month of "Les Miserables," I was looking through the official "Les Miz" web page on the Internet which, among other things, has the complete libretto printed out. And linked to that page was a Lea Salonga page, so I visited that as well. She'd written a few things herself on the page, so it looked like it was an officially sanctioned site and not the work of some fan. There was even an opportunity to e-mail Lea. Just to see what would happen, I did so ... I RECALLED our meeting at the Cafe Royal party in London following the 10th anniversary concert version of "Les Miz" in which she appeared as Eponine, the same role she'll be doing at the Concert Hall. At the time she told me she knew about my column, but I thought maybe she was just being polite. To my surprise, she answered my e-mail. "Your name is really familiar," she wrote, "not from the 'Les Miz' party, but from when I performed in Honolulu when I was around 10 or something. You wrote an article about my performance, and I don't think I ever got to thank you for that." I checked our library and sure enough, there was an entry on Sept. 9, 1981, which told of a Philippine Ministry of Tourism party at the Sheraton-Waikiki at which then First Lady Imelda Marcos along with some 30 entertainers from Manila performed for travel agents. "The real showstopper," I wrote, "was Lea Salonga, the pint-size star of the Manila cast of 'Annie,' who reminded many of the travel agents of a Filipina Shirley Temple." And yes, she was 10 at the time. Can I pick 'em or what? ...
TODAY is Don Ho's 66th birthday, and former manager Kimo McVay has been busy rounding up cockroach-related birthday gifts. That stems both from his role as founder of the "Roach Bowl" of cockroach racing and Ho's appearance in the film "Joe's Apartment," which stars 5,000 roaches. Kimo says he's even trying to find someone to make up a roach lei for Don ...
Maila Gibson
KAUAI record producer Art Umezu has a new female star just appearing on the horizon. She's Maila Gibson and after recording in Glenn Medeiros' studio with Umezu, her demo was snapped up by a Japanese producer who offered her a record deal. "In 25 plus years of showbiz in Hawaii," says Umezu, "I haven't seen talent like hers." Maila exemplifies Hawaii's cross-cultural landscape with an ethnic blend of Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino, German, English and Irish ...
