Father reveals lack of help for tragic Lena Zavaroni in documentary

Lena Zavaroni shot to fame after winning Opportunity Knocks at the age of nine but her life was characterised by a long battle against illness and depression which her family says was not helped by the managers, agents and TV executives around her.

The shocking lack of support and help for tragic child star Lena Zavaroni from managers, agents and TV chiefs is laid bare in a hard-hitting new documentary about her life and career.

The Scots singer, who shot to fame at just nine after appearing on television talent show Opportunity Knocks, died in October 1999 at the age of 35 after a long battle with the chronic eating disorder, anorexia nervosa.

In the week of the 25th anniversary of her death, a new BBC Scotland documentary about her rise to the top and subsequent sad demise reveals that the little girl from Rothesay with the big voice was badly let down by her agents and entertainment bosses as she spiralled into illness and depression as a young teenager.

In Lena Zavaroni: The Forgotten Child Star:

Her 84-year-old father, Victor, is seen visibly distressed when told by the programme makers that his daughter had first been diagnosed with anorexia when she was living with her managers in London at just 13 – three years before he was told himself that she had the illness.
A former senior BBC production manager claims he was threatened with the sack after he twice raised concerns about Zavaroni’s deteriorating health with light entertainment bosses during the recording of a big-money TV series when she was 16.
Fellow Scots child star Neil Reid reveals how the same agents, London-based impresarios Philip and Dorothy Solomon, encouraged him to lose weight as a youngster by offering him cash incentives to do so.

Lena’s story

On a Monday night in 1974, millions of viewers tuned into Opportunity Knocks to watch nine-year-old Lena steal the show.

It would prove to be a springboard to success for “little Lena” leading to performances on Top Of The Pops and the Royal Variety Show, a chart-topping debut album, sharing a stage with Frank Sinatra, performing for the US president and embarking on a world tour.

However, fame came at a heavy price and her light was dimmed by her battle with anorexia.

Lena with Victor, who only learned of her condition three years after her diagnosis

The young singer had been signed up by husband-and-wife team, the Solomons, soon after her TV debut and she moved from her home and family on the Isle of Bute to live with them in London.

However, when she was 16, her dad, Victor, took her to hospital when she was on a trip back home after becoming alarmed about her extreme weight loss.

“I noticed she was very, very thin,” Victor recalls. “So, I took her to the doctor. He says to me ‘your daughter has got anorexia nervosa’.

“I’d never heard the word ‘anorexia’ that’s for sure.”

In the film, Victor becomes visibly upset when programme-makers tell him that Lena had actually first been diagnosed with the illness three years earlier while living in London, at 13.

“I never knew that,” he says. “If that is what happened then yes, I should have been told.”

Following the diagnosis, Victor and his late wife, Hilda, moved to the capital to be with their daughter but by then her illness had taken a powerful grip.

“She was losing more weight and night after night we tried to get her to eat,” Victor explains. “When we put food in her mouth, she spat it out. We couldn’t stop her. It was soul destroying.”

‘It was the management sending that message’

Neil Reid, who won Opportunity Knocks in 1972 at age 12, was also managed by the Solomons. He claims that the couple also encouraged him to lose weight.

“I was a chubby little boy, so I was given an incentive in that for every pound I lost I would be paid a pound,” Reid says.

“It was the management, Philip and Dorothy, that was sending that message.”

Reid says when his father questioned the Solomons about his punishing touring schedule it didn’t go down well.

“I had been sent all over the world to perform with no family with me and my dad was adamant that this would never happen again,” he says.

“When Lena came on the scene there was probably a desire then to make sure there was no family interference.”

Reid adds: “Philip Solomon bred race horses and he once told me that the reason why he loved this so much was because when a horse has a foal its mum and dad didn’t come and tell him what to do with it.”

By the time she was 16, Lena’s work was being badly affected by her illness.

During the recording of her own BBC series in 1978, the show’s then-production manager, Mike Crisp, recalls that he twice approached his bosses to voice concerns.

“It was appallingly apparent that Lena wasn’t eating so I went to the heads of light entertainment and said we shouldn’t be doing the show because she was too ill,” he says.

“By show six she was throwing up in the dressing room and refusing to come out. Stewart Morris, the producer… who was a monster…was screaming in my ear ‘get the cow out here’.

“Things went from bad to worse, so I went to the bosses again. This time I was told to shut up or I could forget my career in light entertainment.”

Victor said that Morris, who has since passed away, approached him during filming and ordered him to intervene.

“He said to me ‘Mr Zavaroni, there is a million pounds going into this… can’t you make your daughter eat? Can you not force her?”

Makers of the documentary said they had approached a friend of Dorothy Solomon and asked if she would take part in the programme but were advised that she wasn’t well enough to be interviewed or comment on the film.

A representative of the 1982 BBC Light Entertainment Group Management stated they had no recollection of a meeting with Mike Crisp to discuss Lena’s health. The corporation said: “As these allegations relate to events from over 40 years ago and involve a former member of staff who is now deceased, it is difficult to comment in detail.

“However, the BBC of today is very different to that of the 70s or 80s, and we would not expect the experiences described in the film to be repeated today.

“We take our duty of care very seriously and have a number of measures in place to safeguard the welfare of those who take part in our programmes.”

BBC Scotland's powerful new documentary Lena Zavaroni: The Forgotten Child Star remembers the little girl with a big voice from the Isle of Bute who stole the nation’s heart.

📅 Watch on @BBCScotland and @BBCiPlayer, Sunday 6 October. pic.twitter.com/CaQX3uNbxo

— BBC Scotland Comms (@BBCScotComms) September 25, 2024

In 1989, the singer married computer consultant Peter Wiltshire. The couple settled in north London but separated 18 months later.

After the breakup of her marriage, she moved to Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, to be nearer to her father and his second wife.

By this time, she was living alone and was on state benefits and following an operation to cure her depression she died at the age of 35 from pneumonia on October 1 1999.

Her cousin, Margaret Zavaroni, who still lives on the Isle of Bute, said her family is shocked by some of the allegations in the film, particularly about the lack of support and care for Lena shown by her agents.

“It brings it all back and rubs more salt in the wound,” she said. “I would hope that nothing like this could happen today to someone so young and who had their whole life in front of them. It is so sad.”

‘Back then we weren’t aware of the dangers of anorexia’

Bonnie Langford, left, and Lena Zavaroni.

Showbusiness friends of Lena Zavaroni had concerns about her eating habits while she was attending the famous Italia Conti stage school in London when she was a child, following her success on Opportunity Knocks.

Actress and TV show host Lisa Maxwell was a former classmate of the Scot. “We knew that there were people who were making themselves sick but we didn’t know that it had a name,” she said.

Singer and actress Bonnie Langford was also at the same school.

“I felt we had a real connection,” she said. “You have this unspoken bond, that you get it. We both knew what you go through to get on stage and how joyous it is to share that with somebody.

“However, at school we would sit and I would have my packed lunch and Lena would say that she had already had something and I would look at her and go ‘have you really?’.”

At times, Zavaroni also stayed with the family of another Conti classmate, Carmen Cori, where her behaviour became a concern.

Cori said: “At about age 13 she would miss meals and sleep in late so she would miss breakfast. But people weren’t quite aware of the dangers of anorexia back then.”

Cori added: “She must have been desperate to find a cure for all the depression and everything and to get out of the hole she was in. It still makes me very sad.”

Lena Zavaroni: The Forgotten Child Star screens on BBC Scotland on Sunday, October 6, at 9pm.