Ma! He's Making Eyes At Me

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Teaching also offers Armstrong an insight into the problems of the developing mind. The actor points out that anorexia is not only a known illness, but far more prevalent than it was in Lena Zavaroni’s day, with some 1.25m sufferers in the UK today. The singer grew up in Rothesay, on the Scottish isle of Bute. Her father, Victor, was part of a big Genovese family and a club singer. Seizing on the obvious power of his nine-year-old daughter's singing voice, he and his wife, Hilda, encouraged her to audition in Glasgow. A few months later she was in Los Angeles sharing a bill with Lucille Ball and a dressing room with Liza Minnelli. Earlier this year, living alone in a council flat and suffering from depression, she talked vaguely of hopes for a normal future after 'part of her brain was cut out'.

The only thing Lena ever complained about was her illness. It was a torment to her. She’d say: ‘It’s as if I’m living in a tunnel.’” And what happens if a young hopeful reveals a degree of talent, has some success – but fails to adapt to fame – and then finds that the entertainment industry no longer values them? The play chronicles the story of Lena Hilda Zavaroni, who was a Scottish singer and a television show host. At ten years of age, with her album Ma!, she was the youngest person in history to have an album in the top ten of the UK Albums Chart. Later she starred in her own television series. She was 13 when she was diagnosed with anorexia, a barely known illness then called the "slimmer's disease". She died in 1999 at the age of 35. 4th November 2023 would have been her 60th birthday.Many would open their arms and grab at it. The money is life changing. “Victor saw it as a chance to set her up for her entire life. And it was.” (Lena Zavaroni’s mother Hilda later took her own life.) The play from Feather Productions is a powerful one. Through humour, show-stopping tunes, and an impressive five-strong cast, LENA documents her short life, exploring the highs and lows of fame and being in the spotlight from such a young age.

Written by BAFTA and Olivier award-winner Tim Whitnall and directed by Paul Hendy, this timely play with music features a wealth of showstopping songs including (Ma!) He's Making Eyes At Me, (You've Got) Personality, and Rescue Me, performed live by the show's five-strong cast and onstage band.Ms Zavaroni, who had been in hospital for several weeks, died after contracting pneumonia following an operation. There’s nine years between Lena and I, and I used to take her and her wee sister, Carla, everywhere. We would to go the Winter Gardens, the fun fair, the beach – we had great times. Lena was singing as soon as she could talk. Her parents sang, and my father was the same, as was their father.” Her career and ubiquity can be traced in such places as the Loving Lena Zavaroni account on Facebook. There, cuttings from newspapers and magazines unfold the Zavaroni story in interviews, profiles, news stories and photographs. There are adverts for shows and pantos too, including her turn in Babes in the Wood, alongside the stars of the TV comedy Hi-Di-Hi, at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham. Although some reports said that the surgery was a lobotomy (also known as a leucotomy), the hospital said that it was not, and the treatment was intended for depression rather than anorexia as was rumoured at the time. [7] [8]

Despite her tender years she also worked with Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand and Lucille Ball and, on British TV screens, with Morecambe and Wise. When she was older, she had her own BBC show, Lena; footage of her singing Penny Lane and Bridge Over Troubled Waters, in 1982, can be seen online. Former Fleet Street editor and radio and TV presenter Derek Jameson told of his sadness at the news of Zavaroni's death. Hughie was a bit like Simon Cowell. He could call the shots in television, labelled ‘Mr Starmaker’.When you interviewed her you felt she was making an immense effort to be a star and it was all a bit much for her." Former child star Lindsay Lohan has echoed that comment. In her first post-rehab interview, she told Oprah Winfrey; "You're a child who is working. You have a job. That job is a hard job. Everybody thinks being a child star is glamorous. But when you're on a show, you are often carrying a whole show and you know that. You have to pull it off. You have to know your lines.” She had been in hospital for about two weeks, and the operation was to help her eat, but she developed an infection. I still can't believe it's happened. Former child star Lena Zavaroni has been laid to rest after a service near her home in Hertfordshire.