Body & Fitness

Opera singer on her mouth cancer shock

This brave singer was determined to star in her dream role.

Maryanne Rushton has many strings to her bow. She’s a dog groomer, figure-skating judge, and a professional film and TV make-up artist, to name just a few of the occupations that keep her busy.

“I know, I know,” she laughs as she lists an impressive collection of her many talents. “I like variety.”

But her major passion is singing and acting in theatrical stage productions.

And the Aucklander – who was a recipient of The Variety Artists Club of New Zealand Scroll of Honour and was classically trained by Dame Sister Mary Leo, the woman behind Dame Kiri Te Kanawa – is counting her lucky stars that she can still perform after she had to have part of her tongue removed this year.

Maryanne (59) – who is currently preparing to take the stage at the Glen Eden Playhouse Theatre in her dream role as Norma Desmond in New Zealand’s first-ever production of Sunset Boulevard – discovered she had cancer in March.

“I thought I had mouth ulcers, initially,” she says, looking back over the journey that started in January last year.

Maryanne says playing Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard is one of her bucket-list roles.

I kept buying the appropriate cream and popping it on, and this went on for a year.

“Then one day it felt like a toothache, so I went to the emergency dentist who said she thought there was actually something wrong with my tongue.”

Maryanne had to have four biopsies to see whether a lesion on her tongue was cancerous. She recalls, “It amounted to taking a piece of my tongue out and stitching it back up. It was very painful.”

The biopsy results were inconclusive and Maryanne was offered a number of options for treatment. She took the plunge and decided to have the lesion removed.

“I thought, ‘Nah, I don’t want cancer – just get it out.’ I’m a very optimistic, positive person and so all the time I was saying, ‘I haven’t got cancer. Don’t worry about me.’

“I really felt quite shocked when I found it was cancer and that it was an invasive kind.”

A large part of her tongue was removed to get rid of the lesion, which went all the way back to her throat. After the surgery, she was told tests had shown she did indeed have cancer, an invasive squamous cell carcinoma.

She wondered what losing part of her tongue would mean for her voice.

“Of course, as a singer and actor, my tongue is very important. I was concerned because the complications could have led to my speech and singing being impaired, which was a worry.”

But Maryanne was fortunate to regain a good amount of her speech, which shocked her surgeon, she says.

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n fact, listening to her, you would never know the trauma she has experienced.

“Luckily, I’m great,” she tells. “The surgeon said to me that, even a year down the track, most people don’t have the same amount of speech as I had just a month or two after the surgery.

“But I think it’s because I use my tongue a lot. I really started working it straight away, which I think softened up the scar tissue.”

Being able to sing and speak again so quickly was a huge relief, especially as auditions for her dream role in Sunset Boulevard were only a matter of weeks after her surgery.

“I’ve been into musicals and performing since I was very young,” says Maryanne.

“I used to write and direct my own plays when I was at primary school.

“Norma is the most amazing character. I identify quite well with this role as she’s an ageing star,” Maryanne laughs. “So I was beside myself when they told me I had the part. This is one of my bucket-list roles.”

Brother David Hartnell shared her joy when she received the Variety Club’s Scroll of Honour.

Taking part in the show has helped Maryanne to take her mind off the struggles she has faced this year.

“I go along to rehearsals, and our cast and crew are wonderful. I become Norma Desmond, and just forget my woes and worries.”

She says she couldn’t have got through the traumatic last year without the support of her three children – Elizabeth (30), Richard (26) and Gemma (19) – her extended family, including her brother, celebrity journalist David Hartnell, and her dear friends.

“It’s been a rough year, but because I am a positive person, I think to myself, ‘Well, look at what I have achieved and look at what I’ve got going for me!’

“And I think we should just move on because bad things do happen to people, but how you deal with them makes the difference.

“I am thankful for so many things. I get to live another day and I get to do what I love. I will just keep doing it for as long as I possibly can, in whatever capacity I can.”

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