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Vanessa Anne Hudgens was born on December 14, 1988 in Salinas, California to to Greg (fire fighter) and Gina Hudgens. [Fast fact: she is half Caucasian (father) and half Filipino (mother)]. She has a younger sister named Stella. When she was still young, her family moved to San Diego, California.
She began her love of music and theater as a young child, in fact both sets of grandparents were musicians during the Big Band Era of the early part of the last century.
She began doing commercials and if other internet sources are correct - she received her first job when a friend could not go and she went in her place. She even began doing some modeling and even appeared on the cover of San Diego magazine.
She made her first television appearance in 2002 in an episode of the TV series Still Standing. This was followed up by another small TV appearance on an episode of Robbery Homicide Division later that year.
She was no stranger to acting and has had a number of theatrical roles including: The Wizard of Oz, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The King and I, Evita, Carousel, Dam Yankees and Cinderella.
Her first real role came only one year later, when in 2003 when she made her big screen debut in role of Noel in the movie Thirteen.
In 2004, she hit the big screen again as Tin-tin in the mildly successful sci-fi comedy/drama Thunderbirds.
She continued with her pursuit of an acting career and appeared in an episode of Quintuplets in 2005.
Her big break came in January 2006, when she appeared as Gabriella Montez in the Disney made for TV movie High School Musical opposite Zac Efron. The movie did very well in the ratings for its demographics, but to everyone's delight, the music from the soundtrack has made a big splash on the U.S. charts. In fact, the single "Breaking Free" - a duo she sings with Zac Efron has reached #4 on Billboard and made history when it dropped 82 places from #86 one week earlier - the largest single jump ever!
She continues to sing and act and has recently (2/06) appeared on an episode of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
Her debut album, V, was released in September 26, 2006 and had great success for her demographics.
High School Musical 2 was televised on Disney with even greater success than the first movie in Summer of 2007. The third movie is slated to be released on the big screen in 2008.
In September 2007, Vanessa found herself in the hot water with Disney when pictures of her naked surfaced on the Internet. These nude pictures sent shockwaves throughout Disney, who reprimanded her, but did not release her. The cast of HS Musical has supported her in her time of crisis, including her costar (and boyfreind?) Zac Efron.
She will be releasing her second album, Identified in 2008.
Hobbies and Interests: Singing, dancing, acting, shopping
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