Maria Venuti’s MIRACLE COMEBACK!
The star is acting again, two years after a catastrophic stroke almost killed her
Seated d like lik a queen in her designer leopard skin wheelchair, and making like a statue as a hairdresser goes to work on her famous mane of hair and a makeup artist applies industrial strength red lipstick, it’s hard to tell if Maria Venuti really is back.
The twinkle comes first. Then a twitch that is almost a smile. Then a big fat smile. But it’s once
those beautiful brown eyes roll in classic Venuti-style that you know the woman who close friends call “Mama” is well and truly still with us.
Heartbreakingly, it’s when the word Mama comes out of those ruby red lips that you also start to realise that the massive, almost fatal stroke that struck Maria, 78, down in November 2016, also robbed her of her famous voice.
“Mama is her default setting now when she can’t get the words out,” smiles daughter Bianca, gently touching her mum’s cheek. And she’s right, because with that one word you can see what Maria really wants to do is shriek “Darling!” and throw her arms around you.
SHOUTING IN SILENCE
It’s heart-rending, but also incredibly reassuring. Things may have changed a lot, but that same old loud and lovely Maria is still shouting, albeit almost in silence. And she’s smiling, exuding warmth – and absolutely loving being the centre of attention.
“She can understand everything,” says Bianca, who jokes that her mum is still every bit the diva she loved to be before the stroke, as Maria prepares to film a scene of a new series of Fat Pizza with creator and star comedian Paul Fenech.
“She still has over-the-top facial expressions. It’s very clear, looking at her face, what emotions she’s expressing.
Sometimes she’ll get a whole random sentence out, but you can communicate without words. She can’t talk, but she doesn’t miss a thing!”
This time the cameras have literally come to Mama with Paul deciding to shoot Maria’s first scene at the home she now shares with Bianca. The entertainer is reprising her role as feisty face-slapping pizza matriarch Mama Gigliotti.
“She’s back and she’s great,” grins Paul, who says he cast Maria in the original series of Fat Pizza in 1999 because she was “flamboyant, Italian and perfect” and felt a new series wouldn’t be the same without her.
“When Bianca explained the severity of the stroke and how she survived it and just keeps getting better and better, I knew we had to have her in the new series. Maria puts herself out there as a dizzy celeb, but don’t ever underestimate her. Her comeback is a testament to her strength. She has a lot of strength of character and determination. I admire her enormously.”
You can see Maria, and witness what Bianca says is nothing short of a miraculous recovery, when the showbiz legend appears in the new season of Fat Pizza on 7mate later this year.
“She loved every minute of today, but thought it went way too quickly – she was just warming up,” laughs Bianca.
To find out how to prevent strokes, go to safestroke.eu
‘She has a lot of strength of character and determination’