by Tina Arena
No doubt I was wearing my sweetest, most innocent expression, but again he sent me away.
Finally, after constant nagging, he agreed, and when the band stopped for a break he got to his feet with a sigh. Taking my hand, he led me to the front of the hall where the master of ceremonies was chatting to the band singer.
My dad may be loud, warm and affectionate with his family, but he’s very polite and quietly spoken with strangers. Still, he put my case: Pina loves music and she would love to sing a number. Would it be possible at some point in the evening?
I stood by Dad’s side, my fingers crossed behind my back. The singer listened intently, then turned his gaze to me and winked. ‘But she’s tiny, Mr Arena,’ he said in Italian. ‘Just a little child.’
He was right – I was small for an eight-year-old. But being an Arena, Dad gave it another go. ‘She is, but she can sing. Why don’t you let her sing for you? Listen to her. She’s good!’
The singer smiled but shook his head. ‘I’m very sorry, sir. But we have a repertoire. We don’t usually do requests.’
Butterflies of anticipation settled into dull disappointment. I stuck out my bottom lip.
Dad gave me a squeeze and led me away. I suspect he was quietly relieved. Now he could go back to his conversation and I back to dancing. But half an hour later, the singer approached my dad. He wanted to hear me sing.
I have no idea what changed his mind. Perhaps someone had put in a good word for me. Or maybe he just felt sorry for a little girl. Whatever the case, minutes later I was backstage with my dad and the band, ready to sing my heart out.
I’d already picked out the song, a number-1 hit I thought was perfect for the occasion. I’d practised it endlessly in the sunroom with Nancy, singing along to the seven-inch single. I knew every word, every nuance of phrasing, every pause, every whisper – and the big note at the end.
I sang for the band, and they clapped and cheered. Then we worked out what key to play in, although I had no idea what they were talking about. Finally the singer nodded at my dad. ‘Okay, Mr Arena, we’re going to put her on.’
As I climbed onto the stage, a bunch of kids followed and gathered around. The singer introduced me and then handed me the microphone. It would be the first time I’d ever sung into a mike, but as far as I was concerned I knew what to do, thanks to all that practice with a power cord.
The band started up: drums, bass, organ. It was loud! I looked around for Mum and Dad. There they were with my cousin Frank Belbruno, smiling and waving from a table near the front. I was nervous under the spotlight, but the funny thing was, it felt perfectly natural. Then the band leader caught my eye and nodded. Off I went.
Like so many hit songs, the hook line was right up front: ‘You’re my world’. My version of the classic was based on Daryl Braithwaite’s, his first solo single. He’d sung it (or mimed it) on the first episode of Countdown in November 1974, and it had become a hit overnight. I have no doubt Nancy and I watched that first show, just as we watched every episode afterwards. Like most Australian kids in the 1970s, we were glued to the TV at 6 pm every Sunday night for our weekly dose of essential vitamins: bands, singers and, in the early days, the Countdown dancers, performing our favourite songs.
I know I had a ball singing that song up there. But my sister Nancy remembers it better than I do. She was down the front, her eyes fixed on me. Then, halfway through the song, she glanced behind her. All around, she says, people had stopped and were listening intently. Maybe it was simply because my eight-year-old voice sounded so different from the previous singer’s. But when Nancy looked around again, she saw a crowd of people standing at the glass doors at the back, peering in as if they were lining up for a concert. And as the song built to a crescendo they pushed through the doors and crowded towards the front. By the time I hit that high note at the end, looking up at me was a sea of faces.
Nancy says she knew then it was a special moment. Maybe I did too, because when I’d finished, it seemed that all of Springvale Town Hall was on its feet cheering, whistling. I glanced left, I glanced right, I stared straight ahead. Then I burst into tears.
Through my tears I looked across at Mum and Dad. My cousin Frank jumped to his feet, ran to the foot of the stage and opened his arms out wide. I fell into them and he carried me away. Which was just as well, because my feet no longer touched the ground. It was an incredible feeling, of freefalling, almost – euphoric. Nancy says I fainted.
I still think about that moment when I cried. Sure, I was little girl doing something new and exciting for the first time – it was overwhelming. But part of me wonders whether there was more to it than that. Because, even as a kid, for me singing was feeling, a connection. It was how I could truly express myself. It wasn’t only about the words or the melody, either. It was also a physical thing. It made me feel happy, it made me feel good.
For me, singing was that simple. Well, it was back then, when I was eight years old and still Pina Arena.
CHAPTER 2
Ring Ring
Dad left Springvale Town Hall that night with a business card in his top pocket. On it was the phone number of a singing teacher called Voila Ritchie.
Mum was still wiping away my tears after my performance when the band singer pressed the card into Dad’s hand.
‘Your daughter’s got something. Take her to Voila. See what she says.’
No doubt Mum and Dad thanked him graciously. I was only half-aware of the conversation, and by the following week I may have even forgotten about it. But my parents must have given it some thought, because they did ring Voila.
When Mum told me she’d made an appointment for me to audition with the singing teacher, I bounced around our tiny kitchen, shouting for joy.
Mum stopped me and looked me in the eye. She had never pushed me into anything, and she wasn’t going to start now. ‘Are you sure you want to do this, Pina? You don’t have to, you know.’
I knew I didn’t have to, but I was already beyond the point of no return. Learning how to become a singer was the thing I did want to do more than anything else in the whole wide world.
Voila Ritchie’s studio was through a plain door and up a narrow flight of stairs on Sydney Road in Brunswick. I sat next to Mum in the little anteroom, the sheet music for ‘You’re My World’ open on my lap. While we waited, I stared at the posters that covered the walls, huge photos of Johnny Farnham, Rick Springfield and other Australian singers. I found out later these were some of Voila’s former students.
A woman with dark hair, bright blue eyes and a warm smile appeared in the doorway. This was Voila. She ushered us into her studio and led us over to the piano. I handed her the sheet music.
Voila sat at the piano and began to play. I sang, giving it my all as I did at the wedding, and ending on that high note.
All the while Voila watched me, smiling encouragingly as her hands moved across the keys.
‘Wow!’ she said when I’d finished. ‘That was lovely, Pina!’ She glanced over at Mum and nodded.
Then we chatted, and it felt like we’d known each other forever. Finally she said: ‘If you want to come back, I’d be happy to teach you. I think you’ve got something wonderful there.’ Then she turned to Mum. ‘I’m impressed. Why don’t we make an appointment this time next week?’
For the next few months I attended a singing lesson once a week. Voila gave me lots of exercises to practise and taught me how to use my diaphragm. She also taught me how to hold myself and how to use facial expressions to communicate emotion.
It turned out that Voila knew Johnny Young. A former singer, songwriter, DJ and record producer who had penned a bunch of Australian hits in the 1960s, including ‘The Real Thing’ for Russell Morris, John was the executive producer and host of a TV show called Young Talent Time. YTT, as it was often called, was on every Saturday evening at 6.30 pm.
The show featured a bunch of kids, the Young Talent Team, who performed the hits of the day and other favourites. They got to dre
ss up in the latest fashions – lots of white flares, matching boleros and polyester satin shirts – and always looked like they were having discoballs of fun. Then there were the kids who competed each week. Ordinary kids like me, who loved to sing or dance or play the piano.
Nancy and I had been fans of Young Talent Time since it started in 1971. And as my little sister, Silvana, got older, she became a fan, too. The clothes, the songs, the sets: it was like another world to the Arena girls growing up in Moonee Ponds. I never believed I could be one of those kids, even though I thought I could sing as well as they could. Somehow, those children on the telly didn’t quite seem real, despite all the fun they appeared to be having.
To Voila, however, Young Talent Time was not only real, it was an opportunity for her newest recruit. In a matter of weeks, she’d put a call through to Johnny Young and got me a spot on the show as a contestant.
I couldn’t wait and counted down the days. Every afternoon after school I practised, singing into the power cord. Nancy was on hand to give advice and direction. She was even more excited than I was. Where it all might lead I had no idea. All I knew was that I wanted to sing on that show.
When the day finally arrived the whole family piled into the car and we drove across Melbourne to the TV station at Nunawading. The trip seemed to take forever but finally we pulled into the carpark.
Inside the studio people were rushing around. There were painted sets and lights and big cameras on wheels that looked like Daleks out of Doctor Who. I’d never seen anything like it but it appealed to me immediately. It looked like so much fun! During a quick rehearsal I was told where to stand and which camera to look at. Then I went with Mum backstage to get ready.
For my first appearance on national television in early 1976, I fittingly wore my flower-girl dress, but this time I sang ABBA’s ‘Ring Ring’, which I’d chosen myself. Mum, Dad, Nancy and Silvana were in the audience, and I could see them as I sang.
At the end of the show, before Johnny and the team cooed ‘All My Loving’ for the thousandth time, the winner was announced. Little Pina Arena.
Of course, we were all thrilled – my parents, my sisters, Voila and I. But my main thought then was that I wanted to do it again. And again. Soon.
Just weeks later I was back on the show, this time in red and white silk pants with a matching bomber jacket that Mum made especially for the occasion. I sang ‘Save Your Kisses for Me’, the song that won the Eurovision Song Contest in early 1976 for the British act Brotherhood of Man. It had been a hit in Australia and Nancy had bought the record.
I appeared as a contestant twice more on Young Talent Time and was lucky enough to take the prize on three out of those four occasions. My sisters and I were still huge ABBA fans, and for my third and fourth appearances on YTT I convinced Voila to let me sing two of the Swedish band’s most recent hits: ‘Rock Me’ and ‘Money, Money, Money’.
By my fourth TV appearance I thought I was quite the little professional: Mum had made me a twenties flapper costume that Nancy probably dreamt up. Voila had taught me how to handle a microphone, when to look straight into the camera, when to smile and when to look pensive. But the wiggling shoulders and hair-flicking I came up with myself, and they stood me in good stead for the next few years.
That year we moved to a brand-new home in Keilor East, a few suburbs north-west of Moonee Ponds. Mum and Dad kept the old house, renting it out to a bloke who turned it into a nursing home. Typically, Dad continued to maintain the garden there as well as establishing one at the new house.
To my parents, the move to Keilor East represented everything they’d worked so hard for since they’d arrived in Australia from Sicily in the mid-1950s. They’d bought the land and built their dream home, a large modern red-brick four bedder with a grand curving staircase, fancy white balustrades, a gleaming new kitchen and terrazzo floors. For Nancy and me it meant moving school – me to Keilor Heights Primary and Nancy to Keilor Heights High.
Many of the neighbours in our little cul-de-sac had stories like ours: parents who’d migrated to Australia from Italy after the war and had worked hard to give their children a better life. Our neighbourhood was built on work and family. That was what bound us together and gave meaning to our lives.
Nancy, Silvana and I soon hooked up with kids in the street and became great friends with the Solars, in particular, who lived two doors down.
I was out riding my bike with Linda Solar one day, not long after my most recent appearance on YTT, when Mum called me in.
I thought I was in trouble. You didn’t mess with Mum – she took no prisoners – so with a pounding heart I rode back down the road and up our drive.
I was sitting on my Dragster looking up at her there at the top of the front stairs when she told me the news. John Young wanted to meet us to talk about me joining the Young Talent Team.
I’ll never forget that moment. Hooting and shouting, I threw my bike down and jumped up and down, both hands flapping. ‘Yes, Mummy! Yes, yes, yes!’ Then I was back on my bike and steaming down the driveway and out into the street, shouting all the way: ‘Linda, Linda! Guess what? I’m going to be on Young Talent Time!’
In fact, when Neville Kent, the show’s executive producer, had rung Mum a few days earlier to invite me to join, Mum told him thanks but no thanks. ‘I have two other daughters, we both work, and we only have one car,’ she said. ‘We can’t do it. It would be too hard.’
But Neville wouldn’t take no for an answer. They ‘had to do something’, he told Mum. The show had had so many letters and phone calls from viewers, they had no choice but to add me to the team.
Mum had held her ground, but she agreed to think about it.
Now she called me back to explain. ‘Pina,’ she said once I’d wheeled my bike back up the drive. ‘I don’t think we can do it. You’d have to go to rehearsals after school as well as do the show all Saturday. It’s too much.’
Mum says my response was: ‘Mummy, if you don’t let me do it, you’ll break my heart!’ Not a bad effort for an eight-year-old!
Mum didn’t give in right away, but she didn’t say no, either. And when Neville Kent rang again, she agreed to meet him to discuss it.
Mum, Dad and I met John Young and Neville at their production office in a grand Victorian building called Television House in Lennox Street in Richmond.
I’d met John a few times before and already I’d warmed to him. It may be that he understood where I was coming from: his parents were Dutch immigrants who’d settled in Perth, so in some ways our backgrounds were similar.
With John there, we Arenas didn’t feel too intimidated. John kicked off by saying how much they’d enjoyed my performances on the show. He said he could hear a big sound growing out of my little-girl voice. He reiterated that they’d had countless phone calls and letters from viewers begging them to make me a team member.
While the adults talked I admired the decor: oversized leather sofas, gold records decorating one wall, and huge posters of current and former Young Talent Time stars. I recognised Karen Knowles, Debbie Byrne, Philip Gould, Jane Scali, Sally Boyden and Jamie Redfern – all household names at the time. Most of them I’d never met, but I’d watched that show religiously and I felt as if I knew them all like old friends.
The discussion was wide-ranging: what my schedule would be, how much I’d be paid, how they saw me fitting into the team. My parents listened politely, asking questions only every now and then. English may be their second language, but they’re both sharp as tacks and no doubt they understood in a way I couldn’t that our daily lives would change irrevocably if we agreed. But in the end that didn’t discourage them. They knew it was what I wanted to do.
There was one condition my mother would not budge on, though. When we went on tour (which happened during many school holidays), she or Dad would go with me. ‘No Franca, no Pina,’ Mum said to John.
When my parents were happy with the deal, they agreed. But there was one issue the
y hadn’t been prepared for. The production team had talked it through and felt strongly that I should alter my name, for the show at least. Filippina was too much of a mouthful for television, and Pina was a little too foreign for Aussie ears, they argued. On Young Talent Time, they’d like me to be Tina, not Pina.
I listened in on that part of the discussions and it seemed like a good idea to me. Just a one-letter change, and I liked the sound of ‘Tina’.
For Mum, though, it wasn’t that simple. I’d been named after her mum, my nonna, Filippa Catalfamo, who was still living back in Sicily with my nonno, Francesco. I’d met them just once, when I was four, on a family trip to Sicily to meet the rellies. So my name was important to Mum – perhaps it was a little piece of her mother and the life she’d left behind.
But my parents are practical people, and they understood and appreciated the thinking behind the name change. So when we left that office an hour or so later, I had a brand-new stage name.
Tina Arena. Or Tiny Tina Arena, as I became known.
The two names summed up my life from then on. For half the time I was Pina, the girl in year three at Keilor Heights Primary who liked to ride her bike, hang out with her sisters and watch Countdown. But for the rest of the time I was Tina, a professional performer who worked several hours a day, five days a week, rehearsing, recording and performing. And it was Tina who appeared on national television every Saturday night, watched by three million Australians – almost a quarter of the entire population of the country back then.
And I was still just eight years old.
CHAPTER 3
The Way We Were
How to summarise seven years of your life in a few pages? Especially when those years made you who you are. It’s probably lucky, then, that I don’t remember specific days or performances or shows. What I recall are moments and feelings, flickering memories of how it was.
Mum once told me that, years before I was born, she’d seen a child perform at the theatre and had turned to Dad’s mother, my nonna Nunzia Arena, and said: ‘I’d love to have a child like that one day.’ As they say, careful what you wish for. Because, from my first Young Talent Time rehearsal in mid-1976, our lives changed, just as my parents knew they would.
