Vanessa Hudgens' father dies on the eve of her Grease: Live event

Vanessa Hudgens will sing through the tears when she appears in the Grease: Live TV event on Sunday night (31Jan16), following the death of her dad.

The actress' 65-year-old father, Greg, lost his battle with cancer on Saturday night (30Jan16).

The former High School Musical sweetheart, who will vamp it up as bad girl Rizzo in the TV special, confirmed the sad news on Twitter on Sunday, writing: "I am so sad to say that last night my daddy, Greg passed away from stage 4 cancer. Thank you to everyone who kept him in your prayers."

"Tonight, I do the show in his honor," she added.

Vanessa revealed her dad was sick last summer (Aug15), during a speech at the 2015 Industry Dance Awards & Cancer Benefit Show in Hollywood Wednesday.

"Last year, my boyfriend, Austin, lost his mom, Lori, to cancer, and my dad has just been recently diagnosed with stage four cancer. Let me tell you, I hate cancer. I hate cancer with every cell of my being.

"If you would have asked me two years ago what I thought of cancer, I would have said, 'Man, you know, it sucks. It's a horrible disease'. But that's only because I had not been faced with it personally."

Offering support to her pal and former High School Musical castmate, Ashley Tisdale tweets, "I am devastated. Just thinking of my girl and praying for her strength today."

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles rain forecast is also threatening to dampen the much-anticipated live musical, which also features Julianne Hough, Aaron Tveit, Keke Palmer, Mario Lopez, Carlos PenaVega, and Carly Rae Jepsen.

Weather experts predict the stars will get wet during outdoor scenes, but producer Marc Platt insists the show will go on.

"We're going live rain or shine and we're excited to do so," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "We won’t do anything that isn’t safe, ever. Safety always comes first, but I’m sure we’ll be fine to do the outside portions.

"Obviously, we try to be smart about how we prepare, because we did want to be outside, rain or shine, and we’ve been preparing this for many months. We hope that we've planned intelligently... That’s what makes live TV exciting - the unknown!"

Grease: Live is the revamp of John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's 1978 movie musical, Grease.