Thank Heaven For Little Girls and Vanessa Hudgens"

Vanessa Hudgens heading for Broadway.

VANESSA HUDGENS is the latest Filipina to play a role of a Parisian woman. Earlier, Lea Salonga played the waif Eponine in one of the world's most popular and artistically successful musical, Les Miserables.

Hudgens was picked to play the title role in the musical version of Gigi based on the Leslie Caron/Maurice Chevalier movie original. The movie featured the songs "Thank Heaven For Little Girls" and "I Remember It Well."

OK, maybe two Filipina actresses portraying French characters don't make a trend, but its an interesting factoid to impress your friends at a cocktail party. 

In a telephone interview with Washington Post writer Peter Marks, Vanessa said she was overjoyed at landing the role, although she had concerns whether "I could really look like I could be a Parisian in the 1900s. I don't think they had many Filipinos there then."

I haven't followed her career closely but I have to give the 25-year-old actress props for her shoutout to her Filipino roots.

Born in Salinas (where a Filipino community is established and where the 1934 lettuce strike occurred demonstrating the power of ethnic labor unions) her mother is a Filipina and her father is of Native American and Irish descent. 

She's a product of the Disney talent factory that also produced Brittney Spears, Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus. The role that made Vanessa a household name is playing Gabriella Montez in the High School Musical movie trilogy opposite teen heart throb Zak Efron.

Well ... what REALLY made her a household name and shattered the Disney mold was when she became one of the first victims of sexting before anyone dreamed up the term "sexting." She shot some revealing selfies and sent them to her then-boyfriend Efron. Somehow those photos found their way into the public eye, as those things inevitably do. Tsk, tsk.

This is not the first time "Gigi" was remade into a Broadway musical but the 1973 attempt fell flat before it hit the bright lights. With Hudgen's star-power, she might be the spark to  light up the marquee.

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