Keisha's a hit - 56,000 times

By JULIE MIDDLETON

Two years ago, if you'd tapped the name Keisha Castle-Hughes into the Google internet search engine, you'd probably have got the message "your search did not match any documents".

These days, Google spews forth 56,000 entries for the 13-year-old Whale Rider star in a mere .35 of a second.

Most of them outline how an unknown, untrained actress in her first role made the Oscar best actress nomination list against the likes of Charlize Theron and Diane Keaton.

There are endless adverts for the DVD, which includes Keisha's audition tape. One site, www.screensavers.com, offers a Keisha screensaver.

But now she is a celebrity, Keisha is open to the celebrity parasites who inhabit the web.

On-line trader Ebay has a Keisha-signed copy of the 100-page Whale Rider script on sale for $175 (no bids so far). Or you can buy a movie still she has signed for $26 (no bids either - yet).

A site which proudly displays Keisha's autograph - for show rather than sale - is www.keishacastlehughes.com and claims to be endorsed by the teenager.

When the Herald interviewed Keisha at home the day of her Oscar nomination, she said she was born in Auckland. Answers to questions about her early childhood were oddly fudged. But she did give the name of her father, Tim Castle. Tracked down in New Plymouth a few days later, he set the record straight: Keisha was born in Australia and Castle reckoned his criminal record had prompted the cover-up.

The Keisha-endorsed site, with a few others, are still peddling the fiction that she was born here, but doesn't, unfortunately, tell us why. (Most of the other sites have caught up with the news. ABC Western Australia even gleefully claims her as a "sandgroper!")

So what are ordinary punters saying about Keisha? Here's a sample from Google newsgroups such as alt.gossip.celebrities:

sgwaters@tampabay.rr.com said: "I actually yelped when I saw her name on the nominees' list - such a surprise, and such a fantastic one! No movie has moved me this year as much as Whale Rider and she is just fabulous."

Added sharlanc@hotmail.com: "She was soooooooo good in that movie. I can't believe she's never acted before. She is a refreshing change from the processed actors and actresses that come out of the United States."

Revelations about Keisha's Aussie birth provoked some chat, including this from a New Zealander called Jane: "Yeah, it's made the news here a fair bit. But she is a Kiwi - you'd only have to hear her order fish and chips to know - accent is the teller. So she's ours - mitts off, ya thieving bunch of convicts and sheep-shaggers."