| Not to bring down the room, but very sadly, Chet Allen, the wonderful child actor who played Amahl in this first broadcast, as he grew into adulthood, developed severe depressive illness, for which he was treated in psychiatric hospitals, ultimately taking his life in 1984 in his home state of Ohio at age 45. Menotti had visited him some time before, and said after the fact, "No one could have helped him enough." |
