Cover Lea Salonga joins Hollywood’s Walk of Fame as the first Philippine-born honouree, following trailblazers from Anna May Wong to Michelle Yeoh (Photo: JC Olivera/Variety via Getty Images)
Lea Salonga joins Hollywood’s Walk of Fame as the first Philippine-born honouree, following trailblazers from Anna May Wong to Michelle Yeoh (Photo: JC Olivera/Variety via Getty Images)
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Lea Salonga receives a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, joining a select group of Asian stars whose careers have earned them the honour, from Anna May Wong to Bruce Lee
Lea Salonga now has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame—a distinction that gives a physical marker to a career that has stretched from Manila to Broadway, the West End and Disney’s animation studios. Inducted on September 4 as the 2,855th honouree, the Filipino singer and actress is the first performer born and raised in the Philippines to receive the honour since the landmark was established in 1960.
With her star now in place, Salonga joins a growing constellation of Asian performers whose careers have expanded Hollywood’s idea of who gets to be a leading figure. From cinema pioneers who broke through decades ago to contemporary stars taking Asian talent into the global mainstream, these are the artists whose work helped pave the way.
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1. Anna May Wong: the silent era’s first Chinese-American star (1960)
Anna May Wong was among the Hollywood Walk of Fame’s original 1960 honourees, and Hollywood’s first Chinese-American film star. She built an international career across the United States and Europe despite the era’s anti-miscegenation production codes and pervasive yellowface casting, which routinely denied Asian actors leading roles even in stories about their communities. Her resilience opened a narrow but permanent path for the generations of Asian-American performers who followed her onto American screens.
2. Sessue Hayakawa: the heartthrob who redefined the leading man (1960)
Inducted alongside Wong in 1960, Sessue Hayakawa was one of silent-era Hollywood’s highest-paid leading men, defying conventions that reserved romantic leads for white actors. Decades later, he proved his dramatic range with an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Hayakawa’s career spanned two distinct Hollywood eras, bridging silent romance and postwar prestige cinema with equal command.
3. George Takei: television’s first non-stereotypical Asian professional (1986)
George Takei’s star, awarded in the Television category, honours his role as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu on the original Star Trek from 1966. At a time when Asian characters were rarely portrayed with dignity on American television, Sulu offered audiences something rare—a composed, competent officer aboard the USS Enterprise. Takei has since built a parallel legacy as an author and civil rights advocate.
4. Bruce Lee: the icon who rewrote Asian masculinity on screen (1993)
Bruce Lee received his star posthumously in 1993, two decades after his death, placed fittingly outside the TCL Chinese Theatre. Through films like Enter the Dragon and Fist of Fury, Lee overturned Western media’s flattened depictions of Asian men, replacing them with a portrait of physical mastery and philosophical depth. His influence still shapes action cinema and global martial arts culture today.
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5. Jackie Chan: the star who globalised Hong Kong action cinema (2002)
Jackie Chan’s 2002 star celebrates a signature blend of acrobatic stunt work, slapstick comedy and meticulous martial arts choreography, honed across decades of Hong Kong cinema. Franchises like Rush Hour carried that sensibility into mainstream Hollywood, generating billions at the box office while introducing global audiences to a distinctly Hong Kong style of action filmmaking that Chan himself pioneered and perfected.
6. Lucy Liu: breaking a 59-year silence for Asian-American women (2019)
Lucy Liu’s 2019 star, placed deliberately beside Anna May Wong’s, closed a stark 59-year gap between honoured Asian-American actresses. Liu had already dominated the box office in Charlie’s Angels and Kill Bill before anchoring seven seasons of the network drama Elementary. Her induction marked a turning point, after which recognition for Asian women on the Hollywood Walk of Fame began arriving with far greater regularity.
7. James Hong: the grassroots campaign that corrected an oversight (2022)
At 93, James Hong received his star following a viral four-day GoFundMe campaign organised by actor Daniel Dae Kim, which raised over US$55,000. Hong’s career spans nearly 700 credits across seven decades, from Blade Runner to Everything Everywhere All at Once. His induction proved that community advocacy could succeed where decades of institutional oversight had failed to honour a genuine screen legend.
8. Ming-Na Wen: the voice and face of multiple Hollywood eras (2023)
Ming-Na Wen’s star recognises a career that spans animation, prestige drama and franchise television. She voiced Disney’s Mulan (1998), starred in The Joy Luck Club and ER, and later joined both Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and The Mandalorian. Few performers have achieved Disney Legend status while simultaneously leading major franchises across animation, comic adaptations and the Star Wars universe.
9. Michelle Yeoh: the first Asian performer to win Best Actress (2026)
Michelle Yeoh’s star marked the latest milestone in a career that took her from Hong Kong action films to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Crazy Rich Asians. In 2023, she became the first Malaysian and the first Asian performer to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, for Everything Everywhere All at Once. Her Walk of Fame induction in early 2026 formalised a career that had already redefined what was possible for Asian actresses in Hollywood.
10. Lea Salonga: Broadway royalty and the first Philippine-born honouree (2026)
Lea Salonga originated Kim in Miss Saigon, winning both the Tony and Olivier Awards, and became the first Asian actress to play Éponine and Fantine in Les Misérables on Broadway. She also lent her voice to Disney’s Princess Jasmine and Mulan. In September, she became the first Philippine-born artist honoured on the Walk of Fame, permanently embedding Southeast Asian stage and vocal artistry into Hollywood’s cultural record.
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After more than a decade in lifestyle media, Clifford has mastered the art of writing seriously about things that are fun—and writing fun things about people who take themselves very seriously. At Tatler Asia, he helped steer its flagship lists, Tatler’s Most Influential and Asia’s Most Stylish. And today, he leads T-Labs, Tatler Asia’s content innovation hub, where he continues the noble pursuit of lifestyle storytelling, spinning stories on wealth, entertainment, necessary style, Hallyu, Hollywood, beauty and more for audiences across Asia.
