Local pageant winner aims for Hollywood

In the months following Leyla Kalmaz’s win in the 2011 Miss Junior Pre-Teen Beauty Pageant in April, the 9-year-old West Hempstead girl has been hard at work preparing for her next competition.

Leyla, a West Hempstead Broncos cheerleader who attends fourth grade at the George Washington School, has been studying in the John Robert Powers School for Commercial Television and Modeling, and was recently selected to partake in the January 2012 International Performers of Professionals, which takes place in Los Angeles.

Before she jets out across the country, Leyla will compete in the Nationals Beauty Pageant, representing New York, in December, and then head to California to audition for top producers. The girl’s talent must be hereditary, as several of the her relatives have experience acting and modeling. Leyla’s father, Oktay Kalmaz, has himself acted in television commercials and been cast in a few movies as an extra. He had once been a professional dancing instructor.

To continue Leyla’s education in film and television, as well as the pageantry, her family is asking for help from the community. “Leyla is enjoying the entertainment business and has been auditioning for casting directors weekly since April,” her mother, Jackie Kalmaz, told the Herald. “[She] is working hard to reach her dreams.”

Her family is asking for donations — of any kind — to be sent to Leyla Kalmaz, 22 Oakland Ave., West Hempstead, NY 11552.