Retarded Woman’s Life, Musical Gifts Inspire Public TV Special

Singer Gloria Lenhoff, who is profiled in a national public television special airing Sunday at 11 p.m. on Orange County’s KOCE/Channel 50, is a talented young woman of warmth and vivacity.

But as the half-hour documentary, “Bravo Gloria,” makes clear, she also is mentally retarded.

“Sometimes, people hurt my feelings,” Gloria said at her Costa Mesa home. “I get very emotional and sad sometimes. It’s not right for people to tease me.”

But the Public Broadcasting System special also makes clear that Gloria, 33, has remarkable resilience.

“I want a good life, too. I believe in God. He has helped me to have a good life--not a sad one,” she said, her whole manner suddenly exuberant. “I know I have a handicap. But I know people like me are special.”

Filmed in Orange County a year ago by a four-member team from Cornell University’s psychology department, “Bravo Gloria” demonstrates that special quality gently, affectionately and tactfully.

In the special, producer James Maas and director Arlene Alda chronicle a “typical week” in Gloria’s life: her packaging chores at a work center for the handicapped in Fountain Valley; supervising youngsters at a Yorba Linda day-care center; taking music lessons; singing at local synagogues and with her parents, Howard and Sylvia, and brother Bernie.

“We wanted to show Gloria the way she truly is--a very capable, fully human person, who touches, and is touched by, so many others,” Maas, a veteran documentary-maker and psychology department chairman at Cornell, said in a recent interview.

Gloria’s mental capacity overall is that of a 12-year-old. Yet “she still cannot make change,” her father, Howard Lenhoff, a UC Irvine biological sciences professor, explained. And once, when Gloria got lost trying out a new bus-transfer route, “she was found later on a street, crying.”

Yet Gloria, a graduate of public school programs for the trainable mentally retarded, has shown normal-to-exceptional capabilities in a singular area: music.

She cannot read music, yet she knows by heart scores of operatic arias and popular ballads--a skill of retention and creativity that still mystifies professional specialists as well as her family. Her repertoire includes songs in Italian, German, French and Hebrew.

“I don’t know why people like me can do this,” said Gloria, who has learned all her songs by ear from listening to opera and musicals on recordings, videos and TV. “I just know I can, and it makes me happy.”

No doubt, the airing of “Bravo Gloria” throughout this month by stations affiliated with the Public Broadcasting System will bring a certain celebrity status to her. In addition to its airing on KOCE, it also will be shown May 27 and 29 on Los Angeles’ KCET/Channel 28.

But Gloria Lenhoff has already had considerable time in the limelight.

For five years--until she left the program a year ago--she was a singer with the Anaheim-based Hi Hopes music troupe, the nationally known touring group made up of the mentally retarded. She was one of the show-stoppers, especially her soaring “Ave Maria” and “God Bless America” solos.

Originally the Cornell film makers were to profile the Hi Hopes troupe and its parent program--Hope University/UNICO National College--an Anaheim arts school for the mentally retarded.

But last May, the Cornell unit withdrew from the Hi Hopes venture after only one day in Anaheim. According to producer Maas, HopeUniversity wanted to retain the right to seek similar coverage by other national television shows, including those associated with commercial networks. (Hope University director Doris Walker said the abrupt withdrawal was a “mutual decision.”)

As a result, Maas said, the Cornell team switched gears and stayed to profile only Gloria Lenhoff. (When shooting was over, a party was held at the Lenhoffs, whose guests included Arlene Alda’s husband, Alan.)

The documentary’s overriding theme is, perhaps, best spoken by Howard Lenhoff, who admits to having been devastated when it became obvious years ago that Gloria was mentally retarded.

“It is not such a great tragedy if you are able to face it the right way,” he said. “Many good things--positive things--can happen from it.”

“Bravo Gloria” closes on such a joyously personal note:

Howard Lenhoff is lecturing on child development to a class at UCI. He discusses the brain damage, chiefly mental retardation, that can result from birth defects. He also discusses the possibilities of a full and enriching life even for the mentally disabled.

Then he introduces Gloria, who, poised and smiling, takes the stage to sing a lifting version of “ Voi che sapete “ from Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro.”

The effect is electrifying. The students in the class leap to their feet, clapping.

One more ovation in the life of Gloria Lenhoff.

“Bravo Gloria” will be shown Sunday at 11 p.m. on KOCE/Channel 50, and May 27 at 10 p.m. and May 29 at 3:15 p.m. on KCET/Channel 28.