Zavaroni, Lena
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Contents |
Information
Born On: November 4 1963
Died On: October 1 1999
Genres: Rock
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UK Charts (Updated Until December 31 2005)
Highest Place In Charts (Albums): 8
Total Weeks In Charts (Albums): 5
Highest Place In Charts (Singles): 10
Total Weeks In Charts (Singles): 14
Discography
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Lyrics And Music Videos
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Sheet Music
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Posters
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Zavaroni, Lena Biography
A cautionary tale to beat most others, of how high a child performer can rise and the depths to which they can sink. Lena Zavaroni was a teenage sensation in the mid 1970s but was built up so far by the media, she succumbed to the eating disorder anorexia nervosa and died at the tender age of just 35.
She was born in Rothesay on the Isle Of Bute, a small island off the coast of Scotland on the 4th of November 1963 and was a regular child performer in talent shows on the island. While she was still only nine years old, she was heard singing in the Athletic Bar on the island on the island by record producer Tommy Scott who happened to be on vacation at the time. He recommended her to the impresario Phil Solomon who had been looking for a young girl singer. Despite her age, he immediately spotted a rare talent and brought her down to London to appear on national television in the top TV talent show Opportunity Knocks, on which she came top of the viewers voting poll five weeks running. Early in 1974, her recording of the Johnny Otis 1950s hit Ma He's Making Eyes At Me was released and hit the top 10, quickly followed by the album Ma which also reached the top 10, peaking at no.8. Because of this chart success, she became at the time, the youngest ever singer to appear on the pop program Top Of The Pops and by Easter 1974 she had her first live performance in front of a major audience at the Opera House in Blackpool and an appearance in a Hollywood charity show which starred Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball. Fast becoming a worldwide star, she also appeared on The Carol Burnett Show on TV, sharing a dressing room with Liza Minnelli. By 1975 still only aged 11, her single had been successful in many countries throughout Europe and Japan and she was invited to The White House to sing before President Gerald Ford. She still had a lot to learn and she signed up to Italia Conti stage school where she met fellow child performer Bonnie Langford, forming a friendship that would develop further and the two teenagers later starred together in their own TV series Lena And Bonnie. Her own TV show Lena Zavaroni on Broadway was chosen for the 1978 Golden Sea Swallow festival where it won the silver award, but dark clouds were already on the horizon, Lena was growing up and developing into a woman and no longer seemed such a cute kid. When the media had described her as �cuddly', she took it to heart, no longer able to fit into the children's clothes she was expected to wear on TV and on stage, she developed the eating disorder slimmers' disease anorexia nervosa. Aged fifteen in the summer of 1979, she returned to her home in Rothesay and was looking thin and gaunt and spent her 16th birthday at the General hospital in Glasgow with a stomach upset and a general feeling of listlessness. The trips to hospital continued throughout the 1980s, stopping her from working for long periods and although she attempted a comeback at Blackpool in a summer season in 1985, the following year she was forced to stop working again due to continued weight loss and illness. Attempting to lead a normal life, she married Peter Wiltshire in September 1989 but the marriage only lasted 18 months and it was around this time also that her mother, who had developed a problem with alcohol, committed suicide. Lena spent most of the 1990s in various rehabilitation clinics but nothing seemed to give her any happiness and her weight at times dropped as low as three and a half stone. She finally developed a chest infection and died from bronchial pneumonia on the 1st of October 1999 aged just 35.
by Sharon Mawer / allmusic.com
| Artist | Zavaroni, Lena + |
| Artist Type | Artist + |
| Bd | November 4 1963 + |
| Birth Date | 4 November 1963 + |
| Dd | October 1 1999 + |
| Death Date | 1 October 1999 + |
| Genre | Rock + |
| Page Type | Main Info Page + |
| RID | 1,798,700 + |
