First Time REACTION Lena Zavaroni | Going Nowhere 1981 | So WONDERFUL!

[@valeriehutton6652]

Today would have been Lena's 60th birthday. I remember her singing, "Ma He's Making Eyes At Me, on Opportunity Knocks, when she was ten years old! Absolutely amazing voice.

[@kennethtalbott2233]

This is my ''go too'' song. i love to listen to this amazing performance. and often play it to the kind of people that would appreciate it. sensational.

[@gregorpare]

She was a child star whilst I was growing up in the 70s, she had a TV show with Bonny Langford. She struggled terribly with anorexia and passed away very young. This song always makes me cry.

[@saschacunliffe7383]

Bonnie had a loving, big family. Lena had her cold, weird horror of an Agent.

[@awaygays2421]

As a stand alone performance, this is indeed legitimately and completely sensational…but….when you know Lena’s’ story and where she was with herself at the time of recording this, it really is something else …… one of the finest vocal performances EVER!

[@kennethtalbott2233]

absolutely.

[@ianstanley7520]

There will.l never be another lena zavaroni

[@glennmorris371]

That performance is Lenas legacy.

[@Nacho-Mamma]

I still have her album. She was an amazing and beautiful talent who at age 35 in 1999 from pneumonia. Sure, there have always been child stars. But, Lena was an altogether different phenom.

[@peterhowells7309]

Greetings from Scotland! Lena Zavaroni, from Rothsay on the Isle of Bute on the West coast of Scotland. A perfect example of how a super talent was destroyed by the music industry! This broke my heart at the time, and it still hurts like hell! I tried to send you a link to the full, tragic story but KZbin deleted the last comment I sent. I would copy and paste but they will delete that too. So, here's the short version - First song came out at 10yo, "Ma! (He's Making Eyes at Me)" and she hit the charts and rose to huge fame at 13yo. That's when her problems started. Shei suffered anorexia nervosa and also developed clinical depression when she was fifteen. After an operation to cure her depression, Lena died at the age of thirty-five from pneumonia on 1 October 1999 in Cardiff, Wales.

[@bestdisco1979]

Her manager destroyed her not the industry.

[@mikeylorene]

@@bestdisco1979 Both of you are misinformed- it was a classmate of hers that made a comment about being fat- when she was 13.

[@saschacunliffe7383]

​@@mikeyloreneI respect your stance, but the weird Agent, as cold as ice, having a desperately homesick child living with her, was undoubtedly a modern horror. Yes, she was at The Italia Conti and competition was huge and atmospheres icy regarding her success. Oh, there is so, so much more to reveal about this girl's life. I recall after her death her husband saying that she repeatedly asked psychologists etc. to help her free herself of a sense of detachment, of not being there in her life, of somehow being separated and observing herself. Where to start? She was a great, great girl.

[@annoldham3018]

Scotland has produced some amazing singers over the years. Lulu and Sheena Easton are 2 more.

[@tonycharlton4296]

She was beautiful, a great talent and sadly missed. I remember her so well.

[@saschacunliffe7383]

Me too! An integral part of the eccentricities of a 70s childhood.

[@irenemorley75]

Going nowhere was the best, she would be 60 years of age now, bless her💕🙏🌹

[@paulwild3676]

We were both born in 1963. I am still here, and she is long gone. How differently peoples lives pan out.

[@theeggtimertictic1136]

Lena was a huge part of my childhood ... She was an amazing talent 😢

[@saschacunliffe7383]

Mine too. More needs to be investigated about her childhood in London.

[@ivanjackson7924]

I can rember lena winning the talent show opportunity knocks a record number of times think she was about ten, she had a staggering career and incredible vocals, I think showbiz, destroyed her. Along with bad child mangment! Rip Lady, go sing with the 😇 Angel's x

[@DylanRomanov]

She should have been as big as Celine Dion I think she was just as good

[@SennaStar]

@@DylanRomanov Bigger than Mariah Carey... Equal to Karen Carpenter and Whitney Houston ..

[@jacquelinegunning10]

I remember her she was my favorite singer I was born in 64 too

[@paulwild3676]

She was born in 1963.

[@mistressmozart]

this performance is so powerful and sad knowing what she was going through

[@bobshep]

Lena at the age of 13 kzbin.info/www/bejne/bGS8oI2QbtGnbJY&ab_channel=LenaZavaroni

[@anne-mariefeeney5760]

There was a brilliant play about her at the edinburgh fringe last year. She was amazing. A star ⭐️

[@MsEternalhope]

I was involved with that play backstage, I saw it several times and was a wreck by the end every time..😭😭😭

[@takerhapsody]

Wish I had seen it . I watched the documentary on her and the play was mentioned

[@bestdisco1979]

Lena's story is the most brutal of all child star cases and her song choices usually said a lot about her and the inner pain she was suffering. Lena still holds the record for being the youngest person to have a top ten best selling album. Thats some going.

[@knowitall6677]

Written by the great Songwriter Neil Sedaka

[@philipmccabe69able]

Lena will be going on sixty one in November god bless her,RIP,sadly missed,she was awesome,a big fan of hers.

[@scottbeszick8953]

I worked with the Amazing Lena Zavaroni for a few years when we work on the Yorkshire Television Production of "Junior Showtime" I was 12 years old and Lina would have been around 10 when we first met, I was part of the young chorus of singers and dancers on the show and Lena would make regular guest appearances throughout the seasons- I never heard of her management making her diet? But she was called by certain journalists as being "Chubby" which inevitably led to her anorexia 😢 Lena was an amazing Singer and Dancer, Cheeky and had a great sense of humour 😜 I'm still great friends with Bonnie Langford who worked with Lena for many years becoming inseparable allies 🙏🏻❤️ Scott Beszick xx

[@ianhuddleston3047]

Beautiful performance on the Morecambe and Wise show too

[@gerardbradley3739]

She was so lovely and great voice

[@ianstanley7520]

What an incredible singer,the world lost someone very special when that lady died !

[@LadyWriter1968]

Lena came to London from Scotland aged 9. A showbiz agent heard her in Scotland. When in London they entered her in a talent show called Opportunity Knocks with Hughie Green as compare, around 1973/74. She won 5x over I think, went on to do her own tv shows in 1970s and 80s. She went to Italia Conti stage school, and think she lived with her agent in London, While her parents remained in Scotland. She ended up with severe anorexia, depression. She never recovered and died in the 1990s in her 30s. She toured USA, Japan as a child. She ended up in a council flat unemployed at end of her life. She was so talented as a singer dancer. She was too sick to continue in showbiz so went out of the lime light in mid 1980s.

[@mandycoulbeck8692]

lena a fantastic singer so sad her illness took her life

[@SerenDipity64711]

Rest in peace beautiful Lena Your voice was incredible. ❤

[@psriam1788]

Society hasn't improved, in fact it has got worse. What a sad outcome for a truly gifted person.

[@MBAinternetmktg]

Incredible voice! So sad that she's gone.

[@raymondberry9482]

Lena won a talent show as a very young child and recorded many records in her short life. As a teenager she sadly developed anorexia and became iller and iller and eventually died from pneumonia in 1999. A very sad story to be told here.

[@Jennifer_Lewis_Beach_Living]

Lena Zavaroni was an AMAZING singing talent and prodigy whose life was cut short from complications from extreme an0rexia (similar to what happened to Karen Carpenter). Just like Karen Carpenter, some losers in the industry told her that she was “too fat”, and it sent her into this spiral.

[@elimay3554]

Beautiful voice

[@martielondon]

There is a tell all documentary on KZbin about how she died. Her manager was on it who told her to go on a diet as a child. Her manager comes across very as a very cold woman who didn't really give a tose about Lena. And at the end of the video there are photos of Lena so thin that her weight went down to about 3 stones. She had chronic anorexia and tragically died after an operation 😢

[@SennaStar]

I will always love you Lena xxxx

[@davidbolton8798]

I saw Lina live in Blackpool she was superb

[@markiecamden]

Lena was only 18 when she sang this. She was an amazing talent with a tragic life as others have said already. It just breaks your heart.

[@manny_yk]

💛💛💛

[@bubbles2868]

She was an amazing child singer. From Scotland. Got her start on a show called Opportunity Knocks. She would have been a superstar but has a sad and heartbreaking story. Her mother comitted suicide. Her father remarried. Lena suffered from anorexia, and depression. Her agent was not helpful at all. Took no blame for the things she did to Lena. Lena weighed about 70 lbs when she died. Her death came after a surgery for depression. She contracted a chest infection after a brain surgery, and she just couldn't fight it. She died 2 weeks later. Singing that song I think was almost like her "goodbye". That's how she felt in life.

[@pepez5263]

Going Nowhere was originally sung by Neil Sedaka.

[@mikeylorene]

The song was written by Neil, as well.

[@ddjr6673]

I remember this performance I was 9 at the time and I LOVED Lena Zavaroni - she had such a difficult life, a huge child star in the UK, and passed away from complications from anorexia and eating disorders in 1999 aged 36 - she was about 17/18 in this clip. She was SO lovely and at 9 years old (in 1981) I think I had a bit of a crush on her or at least wanted her to be my big sister.

[@darkfilms2564]

Compare this beautiful lady with a great voice with the dreck we have today. - An true angel taken too soon - still missed after all these years. 💔

[@margonlindbom4747]

❤❤❤ Just love her. 🙏

[@angelabaker1992]

She was discovered on Opportunity Knocks, a talent show at the age of 10. Her agent wanted to keep her a child. A Judy Garland story.

[@mishho9831]

There is now a documentary on KZbin about her life.

[@kerryclark7233]

For context, Lena Hilda Zavaroni was only 17, going on 18, when she gave that performance, emoting the lyric of that song in a way worthy of someone four times her age then, and with all the vocal power that belied her tiny 4'11" 84lb frame, because she had been through so much in her little life until then and that was still to come in just one month short of only 36 years. What this girl could have become had her illness not hindered so much of her career and cut her life so very short. She had one of the greatest voices that ever breathed and the performance skills, stage presence, personality and charisma to go with it.

[@willewinky]

If you go down the Lena Zavaroni rabbit hole you will regret it. A play about her life is preforming at The Edinburgh Festival 2023. Lena's mother was raped and allegedly committed suicide.

[@bestdisco1979]

Lena s story is absolutely brutal. The very worst and saddest child star scenario ever.

[@mikeylorene]

Lena died of sudden onset Pneumonia after a surgery to help her anorexia- and all the other accusations you just read out are lies from people who have not done their research. Lena did not do anything she didn't want to do- she wanted to be a singing star and since her parents had other children to care for, a lady was hired to take her on a singing tour as her manager and protector. I first saw Lena in the early 70s on Opportunity Knocks when she was first discovered as a 10-year-old knock-out voice singing sensation- nobody could beat her. The lies and accusations about her parents stealing her money and her manager pushing her started after her death from people who were angry at her death so young. But everyone was angry- and shocked- and broken-hearted over losing her. Her anorexia started when she was thirteen years old after her tour was over and she went back to school- an off-handed comment about being fat from another school girl sent Lena in a spin of anorexia from which she could not recover-THAT was the tragedy- she could not stop herself.

[@philipmccabe69able]

Nineteen seventy four on opportunity knocks. with Huey Green for 5 weeks. running.I remember very well,she is a 63,baby as myself and my wife are.

[@casperbubbles]

So sad .. she really felt that song . And knowing what happened to her makes it more poignant .

[@garymcatear822]

React to another Scottish female singer called Lena Martell - One day at a time. Fun fact....she was my dads first girlfriend until my mum came along and he dumped her.

[@philipmccabe69able]

She did win opportunity Knox.But you would only know that if you grown up in that era.One of the best singers out there.Unfortunately she was exploited and let down.A very sad story.She was a super star.We have grown up with her,she was awesome,and she would be the same age,as us.

[@kagnewmp12]

Thanks for this. If you didn't know she also sang on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson in June of 1974. Here's the You Tube link for that appearance if anyone would like to see her as a Child singer. kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYvRnnqQidGNq5I

[@saschacunliffe7383]

How I envied Lena as a little girl. As a kid I desperately wanted to be her - singing away in a loud, atrocious voice that thrilled no-one, only infuriating my brother! Now, I suspect so much about her life, about who she came in touch with and her sinister Agent who I believe to have been instrumental in the loss of her mental health. The anorexia was a symptom and not a cause. God rest her beautiful soul for all eternity. X😅

[@bartonbagnes4605]

A tragic story for sure. Though I am not familiar with this artist, it is always sad when artists choose to end their own lives. That is one thing that makes Angelina Jordan so special, she wasn't forced into performing, her performances are being limited by her parents. She is definitely not being exploited. That's what makes the song "One More Light" so powerful, with the death of the singer Chester Bennington. Especially when it is sung by the One Voice Children's Choir, after the suicide of a former member.

[@debbiesimpson1493]

Angelina jordan??? This is LENA ZAVARONI FFS

[@bartonbagnes4605]

@@debbiesimpson1493 I never said she is Angelina Jordan, only that Angelina Jordan was protected from the same fate.

[@mikeylorene]

Lena did not commit suicide- her mother did.