Names and faces

LITTLE ROCK — Filipino teenage singer Charice Pempengco said she prepared for her debut on the hit TV show Glee by getting Botox and an anti-aging procedure “to look fresh on camera.” The 18-year-old Pempengco, whose singing career rocketed after appearing on Ellen DeGeneres’ and Oprah Winfrey’s talk shows, underwent a 30-minute Thermage skin-tightening procedure and Botox to make her “naturally round face” more narrow, celebrity cosmetic surgeon Vicki Belo told ABS-CBN television. Pempengco, in the same interview, said last week’s face makeover was part of her big preparations for her appearance on the hit show’s second season. She starts filming at the end of this month. “All people will be anticipating how will Charice look? Is she good enough to pit against Rachel Berry? So, of course, there is tremendous pressure,” Pempengco said. In an earlier TV interview, she said she auditioned for Glee in mid-June in Los Angeles and was thankful to have been accepted. “It’s really a blessing,” she said, adding she was “very proud to be an Asian, very proud to be Filipino.” Born Charmaine Clarice Relucio Pempengco and raised with her brother by a single mother, she sang in local contests and appeared on TV talent shows in the Philippines and South Korea before she got a big break on The Ellen DeGeneres Show at age 15. She later appeared several times on the Oprah Winfrey Show and credits Winfrey for helping push her career.

A bone marrow drive for an 11-year-old Lion King star with leukemia has turned out to be one of the hottest matinees on Broadway. Some 385 people registered as bone marrow donors Sunday in hopes of helping Shannon Tavarez beat leukemia. Shannon played the role of Young Nala, the lion cub in The Lion King, for seven months before she was diagnosed with the life-threatening blood cancer in April. Her best shot at recovering and returning to the theater is a bone marrow transplant, which requires a genetic match. The bone marrow registry DKMS held a bone marrow drive Sunday at St. Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church in the theater district. Shannon won the role of Young Nala in an open audition - her first ever.