Tia Carrere was born Althea Rae Duhinio Janairo on January 2, 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii. She is the eldest of three sisters and two half-sisters. While attending Sacred Hearts Academy school for girls, Tia was discovered in a Waikiki grocery store and landed the female lead in the indie movie Aloha Summer (1988). Although her passion has always been singing (grandmother Rae took Tia to her first singing lesson at age ten), Tia would continue her ascent in the acting world with a regular stint on "General Hospital" (1963) as "Jade Soong" and a string of co-starring roles on "MacGyver" (1985), "Quantum Leap" (1989) and Friday the 13th, among others. It wasn't until her breakthrough role as "Cassandra" in the Wayne's World films that Tia was able to showcase both her singing and acting chops. Wayne's World was a worldwide phenom and set the stage for her villainous "Juno Skinner" in True Lies (1994) opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, computer whiz "Jingo Asakuma" in Rising Sun opposite Sean Connery and her own series lead of "Sydney Fox" on "Relic Hunter" (1999). Other current TV work has included appearing on the 2007 season premiere of Nip/Tuck, on Kelsey Grammer's Back To You, and recurring as Cha Cha on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. Recently Tia returned to her Hawaiian roots with her voice work in Disney's Lilo & Stitch films and series as well as her Grammy-nominated CD " hawaiiana ".
http://www.series-80.net/us/actor/biography/tia-carrere.html
Tia Carrere
31 Jan 2009, 21:50
