Sparkle returns to Maria Venuti’s eyes after stroke and stalker hell
She has always lit up any room she entered but much-loved entertainer Maria Venuti was at death’s door after suffering a stroke when a stalker broke into her house. There are now challenges to overcome but Venuti she is still the life of the party.
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It’s been nearly eight years since Aussie entertaining royalty Maria Venuti almost lost her life.
Her stalker – a young, mentally unwell man who alternately thought he was her husband, her daughter Bianca’s partner … even Jesus, had entered Maria’s home with flowers, telling her “it was all about to end”.
Terrified by the intrusion from a man who had long tormented the larger-than-life performer, she had a stroke so catastrophic no one thought she would survive.
No one except Bianca, that is.
“When Mum nearly died, I just had a moment where I thought – if I literally just preserved her amazingness and all that she’s done in this life and all the people she’s given to, and the joy she’s put into people’s lives – if I just literally kept that alive, that would be a significant contribution,” Bianca Venuti tells Sydney Weekend ahead of Mother’s Day.
“And then I also had a moment where I thought – she can’t go anywhere until she’s a grandma.
“(The doctors) basically said ‘we’re really, really worried’ – and I said ‘I’m not worried’. They said, ‘well medically …’ – and I said ‘you don’t know what my mum’s capable of. You said every brain is different – I understand what you’re saying, but let’s just see’.
“I was constantly … ‘look she moved her toe’ and showing them what she was capable of.
“So we decided we would treat her like she would make a recovery, and then we’d see how she goes. And then when she started to have such big wins, even in being able to understand … they were truly like ‘it’s a miracle, how far she’s come, given how bad her stroke was’.
“I even remember – she wasn’t unconscious, but the brain wasn’t responding to things, and we were just trying to get a bit of movement, even in her left hand.
“I had said to her, ‘if you wake up enough to know who I am, and know what it would be like to hold a grandchild, even if it was just movement in your left hand, I promise you that within four years, I’ll make you a grandmother’.
“I made this little pact with her. And literally within a week, she was well enough to know who I was.”
Bianca says the pressure was then on – “even to meet someone for a start”, she laughs. “So it took five years not four – but it was close, and I feel we both upheld our ends of the bargain.”
I WANT TO BE OUT THERE
Today, Maria is wheelchair bound and unable to speak, except for a few words. Aptly, “mamma” and “yes” are two of them. But she understands everything that is happening around her, and is visibly frustrated at not being able to participate in conversations she stars in.
At 83, she’s lived seven more years post-stroke than doctors anticipated, so they are all grateful.
Her new life is worlds away from the bright lights, glitz and glamour she was used to. But you can see in her eyes, even after all she’s endured, she’s still a powerhouse, calling the shots and commanding the room. Still full of that life that was almost taken away.
She is Maria Venuti, after all.
She’s bright lipstick and big hair. Colourful feathers and sparkly tops. She still loves a red carpet too, according to her daughter.
“Mum’s very social,” Bianca says.
“She doesn’t even just want us around – she wants to be on the red carpet, be in magazines, on television shows – she’s not happy just to chill comfortably.
“She’s like, ‘No, no, I’m Maria Venuti – I’ve got a difference I need to make, I want to be out there doing all these things’.”
With high blood pressure and a history of atrial fibrillation, Maria was already a Stroke Foundation ambassador when she suffered the same fate in 2016, so both she and Bianca knew the signs. And that day, Bianca knew something was terribly wrong.
“The stalker was so hectic,” she says. “He’d tried to come over a couple of times, and (the police) had said he doesn’t have any criminal history.
“We got conflicting advice – someone said don’t worry about getting an AVO, he’s got mental health issues, he takes drugs – he doesn’t know who he is.
“He thought he was Mum’s husband, he thought he was my boyfriend, he thought he was Jesus. He thought the police were his children; he just had no idea what was going on.
“So they said don’t bother getting an AVO because he’s got mental health challenges, he’s not going to pay any attention to it, basically.
“So we didn’t.”
The pair had just returned to Sydney from Melbourne Cup week events the day Maria’s stalker appeared again.
“Mum rang me and said, ‘he’s back, he’s here’ – and she said ‘I’m feeling really sick’,” Bianca recalls.
She called the police, who, knowing the history, had said to notify them if it happened again.
“Then when he came over, and I said can you arrest him? He almost killed my mother – and they said no, because there’s no AVO – and he didn’t have any intention to harm because he came over with flowers,” she says.
“There was a lot of frustration by Mum and I about the whole way things were handled … there was nothing for what happened to Mum and the damage it caused.”
(The stalker was not charged. The Venutis fought for consequences for what he had done, but the only charge laid was for violence against a police officer, who broke his shoulder when trying to get the stalker to move.)
On the day of the stroke, the stalker turned up on Maria’s property, saying “it’s all going to end”.
“So she totally freaked out,” Bianca says. “And her brain just exploded.
“I spoke to her on the phone and five minutes later, no one was answering. I just knew at that point – Mum’s not answering her phone, something’s wrong. I hung up and called the ambulance. I just knew she wasn’t OK.”
When they found Maria it was too late. She was on the bathroom floor, unconscious, and signs pointed towards a serious haemorrhagic stroke.
“They said it was one of the most catastrophic strokes they’d ever seen. And the doctor said, ‘what would your mum want?’ – and I said, ‘sorry what do you mean?’
“Basically – would she want to live?
“Would she want to live with a tube down her throat, unable to eat? Unable to talk? Would she want to live that way?
“Of course she wouldn’t want to live that way – ‘what’s the other option? That she doesn’t live? Well she doesn’t want that either. Let’s be really clear here, these are two really bad options’.
“So I actually didn’t see a choice. I said – let’s keep doing everything we can. She would want the best doctors doing absolutely everything they can.”
So they waited. The first 24 hours were critical. Then two days. The next milestone was five days.
“So they say the first few days are really critical and I remember two days later, I was going ‘what milestones am I tracking to?’
“And they said well, you’ve met your first one. She made it out of the ambulance alive – that was very unlikely.
“I thought, ‘OK, you’re already impressing, Mum’ … what’s the next one?
“When she was half dead and not moving – I was just singing. I didn’t cry, I just sung. What else do you do? We just sing.
“And from the get go, she was doing way more than we thought was possible.
“That’s when I said, you’ve not yet had a granddaughter, you’ve got to stick around.”
MAKE THE EYELASHES BIG
Stick around she did. Today she’s having troubleswallowing and she’s got a sore tooth, tut-tutting her daughter for not booking her a dentist appointment.
But she’s here. Eyelashes and all – the bigger the better, she motions to her make-up artist for our photo shoot.
“Now that it’s seven years, you kind of realise how big it was – but it’s funny, I always said to Mum, I want it back to a point where we get cranky at each other,” Bianca says.
“I’m happy that she’s corrected me because she has to go to the dentist – because actually, that’s our normal relationship.”
She turns to her mum: “You look like yourself,” Bianca tells Maria, who now has a full face of makeup, just the way she likes it.
Lots of contour. Bright lippy. Blush for days. You can see the relief in Maria’s eyes at her daughter’s words.
“She’s not one of these people that’s all ‘don’t worry about me, I’ve lived my life, I’m good, you go spend time with Allegra’, mind you,” Bianca continues.
“She’s like ‘what party? why am I not invited?’
“I’m like ‘it’s a two year old’s birthday party and there are stairs everywhere – this is not your event, Mum’.
“When Mum had the stroke, being in ICU for seven weeks, being around the physios, the OTs, the nurses, I learned so much … the only thing was hair and make-up, I still can’t do that,” she laughs.
Eyelashes on and with her favourite fur around her shoulders, Maria still lights up when a camera flashes.
The same way she does when she looks at Allegra, who dances around her wheelchair as we speak.
Little Allegra is now 2½. Her name – in both Italian, Maria’s heritage, and Portuguese, her father Gary Freitas’s heritage – means joyful. And that she is.
She’s a little performer, just like her Nonna – perhaps it skips a generation, laughs Bianca.
The three Venuti women live together, with Gary, and Bianca is her mother’s primary carer.
It’s not an easy task, particularly when you have a toddler, work full time and are inching your way through a PhD – but like deciding whether her mum should live or die – for Bianca, there was no choice.
“It was always Mum and I growing up,” explains Bianca, who works at Deloitte in leadership consulting.
She’s also studying positive psychology, the science that develops a model to analyse collective strengths, for her PhD.
Bianca cares for her mum because she wants to.
“It was always just the two of us,” she says of her childhood.
“I was an only child like Allegra, and we’ve always been so close.
“Literally, I was her plus one to everything, and we’d always do things together – so it’s not even a ‘give back’ thing – (for me) it wasn’t even a choice.
“There have been times where I’ve thought ‘this is way too much’. And I was very clear with Mum – I said that when Allegra was born, I would be resigning from being her main carer because I had Allegra now and I had a new job – but that I would make sure I still sit on that board of directors and make sure that she gets all the care that she needs.
“I said, ‘you’ve got me 100 per cent until I have a baby, and then we’ve got to share’.
“Even Mother’s Day – because I had Allegra at 41 – so I said you’ve had more Mother’s Days all to yourself than many other mums, you’re going to have to start sharing them with me now.
“So I always take Mum out separately and we always go to some nice place that she wants to try, a new restaurant or something – but I needed to make that call. Not say, ‘I can’t do it’, but just say, ‘my role needs to look different’.
“And I now need to be the best mum I can be. And I think Mum gets that and understands.
“Are you all right with that, Mum? Being No. 2 instead of No. 1?’ she asks her mum, sitting next to her.
THE AGED CARE QUESTION
People have asked Bianca why she doesn’t put her mum in aged care. It’s a question haunting hundreds of thousands of Australian families who struggle to care for their sick or elderly – and the answer is simple.
“Because she doesn’t want to hang out with old people,” Bianca says of her mother, the icon. “She doesn’t see herself as old.
“At this stage, I think she has a better life being close to Allegra, being close to us, and we just make it work. I do have (a nurse) to help me. At one point I (considered if it) was cheaper for me to not work and just look after Mum, but it’s just too much.”
“But how many little girls can say they grew up with their Nonna? It’s nice. And the nice thing is growing up, my mum’s mum was next door to us, so whenever Mum was working, my Nonna would look after me.”
As Bianca grew up – a “shy, nerdy kid who liked numbers and wore glasses”, Maria would be doing a stage show, sometimes for three months solid, every night.
“It was funny because most kids, when your parents are working, they’re working in the day, so then you’d see them for dinner and bedtime,” Bianca says.
“Mine was the opposite, where Mum would be working at night, so I’d always be sleeping at my Nan’s house and waking up with my Nan.”
So what was it like being Maria Venuti’s daughter? In a word – fabulous.
“In one way I felt permission to just be fabulous,” Bianca says. “In another way I felt like I needed to rebel and actually be the nerdy one and ‘blend in’ … so poor Mum would be, ‘OK, we’re going on the Bert Newtown show’ – and I’d be, ‘no, no I don’t want to do it’.
“And she was, ‘it’s a Mother’s Day thing, it doesn’t really work without you, you’ve got to come’.
“Even when she did her shows, I’d say ‘don’t you come near me with that microphone’ – but a little part of me at the back of my head would think, ‘I wish I could be courageous on stage like that’.
“I think I’ve come into it more as I’ve gotten older.
“But it was definitely … different (being Maria Venuti’s daughter).
“I actually quietly think I loved being in the social pages and having kids go ‘oh you’re in the paper’ – but I just never wanted to admit it to Mum, because she would have pushed it too hard.”
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Originally published as Sparkle returns to Maria Venuti’s eyes after stroke and stalker hell
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