Lena Zavaroni
Remember Lena Zavaroni, the Scottish child star who sang for President Ford in the White House?
At the age of eleven she had sell-out concerts at the London Palladium and appeared in concerts and TV appearances in the US, South Africa, Japan, Germany, Holland and Austria. The following year, 1976, she sang in the Royal Variety Show; in 1977 she had her own summer season in Eastbourne; in 1979 her own BBC TV series. She was said to be Scotland's richest teenager.
But underneath the success Lena was a deeply unhappy teenager who, under pressure to maintain the image of a child star, had became anorexic.
Lena continued to suffer from anorexia and depression and the 1980s and 1990s saw hospital treatment, including ECT, a brief and unhappy marriage, her parents' divorce and her mother's suicide. Eventually she was living on disability benefit in a council flat. (What happened to all the money?)
In September 1999, she underwent a psychosurgical operation in the University of Wales hospital in Cardiff, one of only two centres in the UK that still perform such operations. Three weeks later, still in hospital, she died of an infection. She was thirty-five years old.
A spokesman for the hospital had this to say about the operation:
"A special surgical procedure is available as a last-resort treatment for the most severe cases of chronic clinical depression. It's not a treatment for anorexia and it's not a lobotomy.It's available only at a small number of specialist neurosurgical centres in the United Kingdom, of which the University Hospital of Wales is one. This is not an experimental or pioneering procedure - the NHS treatment has been performed successfully at the hospital for over six years.
Each operation is approved individually by the Mental Health Commission and surgery can only be performed after a rigorous examination of all the facts in each case.
This includes an interview with the patient and all the healthcare professionals involved."
Coroner Dr Lawrence Addicott recorded a verdict of death by natural causes.
Read more about Lena here
At the age of eleven she had sell-out concerts at the London Palladium and appeared in concerts and TV appearances in the US, South Africa, Japan, Germany, Holland and Austria. The following year, 1976, she sang in the Royal Variety Show; in 1977 she had her own summer season in Eastbourne; in 1979 her own BBC TV series. She was said to be Scotland's richest teenager.
But underneath the success Lena was a deeply unhappy teenager who, under pressure to maintain the image of a child star, had became anorexic.
“When they tried to fit me into those costumes, they would talk about my weight. I kept wondering how they expected me to fit into these dresses. I was a plump little girl and I was also developing into a woman. I wanted to be just right for them but I had to go to all these breakfasts, dinners and lunches.” She added: “I only became fanatical about not eating when the pressure became too much. I just wanted to have a nice shape.”
Lena continued to suffer from anorexia and depression and the 1980s and 1990s saw hospital treatment, including ECT, a brief and unhappy marriage, her parents' divorce and her mother's suicide. Eventually she was living on disability benefit in a council flat. (What happened to all the money?)
In September 1999, she underwent a psychosurgical operation in the University of Wales hospital in Cardiff, one of only two centres in the UK that still perform such operations. Three weeks later, still in hospital, she died of an infection. She was thirty-five years old.
A spokesman for the hospital had this to say about the operation:
"A special surgical procedure is available as a last-resort treatment for the most severe cases of chronic clinical depression. It's not a treatment for anorexia and it's not a lobotomy.It's available only at a small number of specialist neurosurgical centres in the United Kingdom, of which the University Hospital of Wales is one. This is not an experimental or pioneering procedure - the NHS treatment has been performed successfully at the hospital for over six years.
Each operation is approved individually by the Mental Health Commission and surgery can only be performed after a rigorous examination of all the facts in each case.
This includes an interview with the patient and all the healthcare professionals involved."
Coroner Dr Lawrence Addicott recorded a verdict of death by natural causes.
Read more about Lena here
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