Leilani Jones Wilmore, former Hawai'i actress-singer, shares this wisdom with Loretta Ables Sayre, should she win a Tony Award tonight.

"This is something nobody can take away from you," said Wilmore, who was simply Leilani Jones when she won a Tony for best featured actress in a musical 23 years ago. She played Satin, a stripper, in 1995's "Grind."

"I was 28 then, and I remember thinking, 'I can tell my grandkids about this.' My parents came from Hawai'i to see the show; we had a big Hawai'i gang there."

Wilmore, who lives in California now, is one of the few Islanders to win a Tony. She gained initial fame in "Little Shop of Horrors," an off-Broadway musical hit. "Grind" was her first on-Broadway musical, just as "South Pacific" is Ables Sayre's debut.

"I met (producer) Hal Prince, and he gave me a 29-page song — the big production number, a song for a show-within-the-show — and I pulled it together, with costume dance, and a little dialogue in the middle of the song, Wilmore recalled. "The skills I learned then have never left me."

The most prominent of previous Tony nominees from Hawai'i was Willy Falk, for his role as Chris in "Miss Saigon," best featured actor in a musical, 1991.

Trivia note: Leilani Jones was his date when he was nominated, he was hers when she was nominated.