"My mom took me to see Annie at the Curran Theater when I was eight years old," remembers Lesli Margherita, the Fremont-born Broadway breakout who's back on native turf with her new cabaret act, "Broad," at Feinstein's at the Nikko this weekend.
"I'd been taking dance classes,"she recalls, "but I had never sung in my life. I was fearless though. I wanted to be up there immediately!"
"That was it!" says the youngest of four sisters who remembers "always playing the clown at home, always bugging them, trying to make them laugh. They were already in college when I was little and I wanted them to notice me."
More than 20 years later, Margherita's acclaimed Broadway debut - as Mrs. Wormwood in 2013's multiple Tony-winner, "Matilda" - provided an ideal vehicle for her unusual combination of strengths in comedy and choreography.
As it turned out, eight-year-old Margherita had both a solid singing voice and parents willing to support her enthusiasms. In short order, she was winning roles in Bay Area community theater and professional productions.
In high school, she spent summers singing and dancing in revues at Great America in Santa Clara-a gig that paved her way to a part-time job performing at Disneyland while studying at UCLA.
One of the requirements of the well-regarded UCLA theater program is that students are not allowed to take on professional acting jobs while enrolled in the department.
Margherita, already energized by a steady diet of limelight, took a pass, opting to major in dance and eventually switched to pre-law to acquire some safety net skills.
But a net was hardly necessary. Margherita took a year-long break from college after being cast for a national tour of "A Chorus Line." And almost immediately after graduation, she won a plum part in "Fame LA,"a 1997-1998 syndicated television reboot of the hit film and earlier series.
For close to a decade after "Fame," Margherita carved out a steady career in regional theater and a solid array of small film and television roles, in everything from "Chicago Hope" and "The King of Queens" to horror feature "Boogeyman 2" to voiceover singing in animated children's videos.
In the midst of her journeyman film efforts, Margherita was approached to participate in workshops for a flamenco-driven, tongue-in-cheek "Zorro" stage musical with music by the Gipsy Kings.
"Nobody really thinks of Los Angeles as a theater town," Margherita notes, "But the producers wanted to work on it here because they thought they would find great Latino talent."
Thus, in a tale that combines two classic Hollywood tropes-superficiality and happy endings- came to play Inez, the gypsy queen, a role that would begin her circuitous path to a long-dreamed-of Broadway debut.
"I won the role because people were making assumptions about my ethnicity. A lot of the cast's first language was Spanish, and half of the lyrics to my songs were too. I had to learn everything phonetically. Eventually, after it was clear I was doing well, I came clean and told everyone 'Hey, I'm margherita the pizza, not the cocktail!"
Picked up by British underwriters, "Zorro! the Musical" toured the UK for six months of working out the kinks before opening on the West End in 2008.
"The most flamboyant display of personality comes from, who flashes her eyes and other parts of her anatomy with the gayest of abandon" wrote one of many fawning critics whose eyes seemed to go as wide as Little Orphan Annie's when they took in her performance. A less salacious reviewer wrote, simply, "Leslie Margherita steals the show."
Brits & Broadway
The show may have been stolen, but the success was hard-earned, and Margherita won a 2009 Olivier award for Best Supporting Actress in a Musical.
While working on "Zorro" throughout the UK and in London, Margherita developed close friendships with lots of folks in the British theater scene who were simultaneously delighted and appalled by her unvarnished forthrightness.
"The joke over in London when I was going out with my castmates was that I was so very American, no reserve at all, just an out-there personality. Not veddy British!"
In 2010, after Margherita had returned to California and was drawing strong reviews for leads in "Man of LaMancha" and "Kiss Me Kate," one of her British pals called, excited about "Matilda," a new musical based on the Roald Dahl children's book, then playing at the Royal Shakespeare company.
"There's a part," the friend told her, "That's just perfect for you!"
Mrs. Wormwood, the neglectful mother of the titular character, is a low-class, high-brass, coarse-mouthed comic gem.
"She's all about sparkles and hair and bigger is better," says Margherita. "And she has a really big dance number. There aren't a lot of roles where you get to be funny and do serious dancing."
Margherita had her agent begin to put out feelers long before a New York transfer was even announced. Ultimately, the American actress who first found real stardom on the West End soon found herself playing a beastly Brit on Broadway, winning cheers for a crowd-pleasing feature number with lyrics altogether befitting the one-time baby sister.
You've gotta be loud, loud, LOUD!
You've gotta give yourself permission to shine,
To stand out from the crowd, crowd, crowd!
All that brass and sass-with a touch more class-is on display in "Broad," Margherita's tribute to some of the unconventional female performers with whom she feels a kinship.
"I love Mae West. Sophie Tucker. Eartha Kitt. Chita Rivera, Bette Midler, of course. All of these strong women who did songs that were funny and, for their time, raunchy."
Margherita has an impish sense of impropriety herself, not to mention a passing resemblance to Sarah Silverman, playfully displayed in a behind-the-scenes video blog she made for Broadway.com as Matilda prepared for its opening (Search "Looks not Books" on YouTube).
The reach of YouTube, combined with the fact that Matilda had a built-in audience of tweens and teens who had grown up with the Dahl book, has led to Margherita's having a huge comment-crazed adolescent fan base on social media.
"I love them," she says. "I mean, I was a huge theater geek when I was a kid. I would have killed to be able to tweet Chita Rivera. I try to reply to them when they say something notable, and I will always try to at least 'like' or 'favorite' their posts."
But Margherita also has some strong opinions to share with the "Glee" generation.
"There is nothing more disheartening for a performer than looking out into the audience and seeing phones held up in front of people's faces. It really keeps them from being there in the moment and creating that feedback loop between the stage and the audience that gives live theater so much of its specialness."
Lesli Margherita performs 'Broad' at Feinstein's at the Nikko. $40-$60. March 25, 8pm. March 26, 7pm. Hotel Nikko, 222 Mason St. (866) 663-1063. www.leslimargherita.com www.ticketweb.com