BBC News Entertainment
Date set for Zavaroni funeral
The funeral of former child star Lena Zavaroni will take place on Friday 15 October, her family have said.
The service will be held at St Augustus Roman Catholic Church in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire, where she lived for several years and where her father and younger sister still live.
The 35-year-old singer died on 1 October following brain surgery to combat the eating disorder anorexia, which she had suffered from for 22 years.
Her cousin Margaret said hundreds of mourners were expected at the funeral, including family, friends and showbusiness colleagues.
"We would like to say thank you to everybody who has sent us their sympathy and flowers," she said at her home on the Isle of Bute off west Scotland.
"Lena's father has asked for flowers to be sent to anorexia sufferers."
Family members expected to attend the funeral include her father Victor, his wife Christine, his two brothers and Lena's younger sister Carla.
But her former husband Peter Wiltshire, who has recently remarried, said he would not be attending the funeral.
Lena Zavaroni was born on the Isle of Bute and shot to fame at just nine years old after singing on Opportunity Knocks.
She was the winner on the talent show for five weeks in a row and went on to top the charts with Ma, He's Making Eyes At Me.
At the age of 12 she sang for the Queen at a Royal Variety performance and appeared alongside Frank Sinatra and Liza Minnelli at a charity concert in Los Angeles.
But it was at the height of her fame, aged 13, that she developed the eating disorder anorexia.
Her career slipped and she retired from showbusiness when she married businessman Peter Wiltshire in 1989.
The marriage broke up after 18 months and she moved to Hoddesdon, to be near her father and his wife.
By her mid thirties, Lena was living in a council flat in Hertfordshire and surviving on £48.80 weekly state benefits.
She fought a constant battle with anorexia and depression, and was admitted to the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff earlier this year in a final attempt to overcome her illness.
On 7 September, she underwent a rare operation to remove the part of her brain that was believed to be controlling her anorexia, but contracted pneumonia after the surgery.
An inquest into her death has been opened and adjourned.
Archived Source: here
Note
The brain surgery was not to combat the eating disorder anorexia as claimed in the BBC News article.
Robcamstone