Interview before Kewadin Casino performance
Sault Star’s conversation with Olivia Newton-John. Late entertainment legend dished to Jeffrey Ougler in 2012 interview prior to Kewadin performance.
The Sault Star, reprinted: 30 Aug 2022
By Jeffrey Ougler
Photo: Olivia Newton-John arrives for the G’Day USA Los Angeles Black Tie Gala in Los Angeles in 2018.
The entertainment world is still mourning the recent death of music and film star Olivia Newton-John. The Sault Star’s Jeffrey Ougler had the pleasure of speaking to Newton-John a decade ago prior to a performance at Kewadin Casino in Sault Ste. Mary, Mich. Here is how the subsequent story appeared in the November 5, 2012 edition of the Sault Star.
It’s fair to say Score: A Hockey Musical didn’t exactly score with some critics. “This corny movie about Canada’s national sport belongs in the penalty box,” ruled the CBC.
“Score is parochial in the worst sense - maybe a Winnepegger will love it, but a Parisian or a Roman, who wouldn’t know a Zamboni from a zabaglione and is given no reason to care, assuredly will not,” decided the Globe and Mail.
The Toronto Star was a bit kinder: “Score isn’t deep and there’s no danger of it becoming a global phenomenon. But it’s as true a crowd-pleaser, one that doesn’t require season tickets to the Maple Leafs to appreciate.”
Such reviews don’t leave Olivia Newton-John at all chilled.
At this stage in her long career, the music and film superstar, 64, says she does projects that please her. And she says she’s more than pleased with Score: A Hockey Musical, not to mention the reception she received at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, where the work was part of the opening night gala.
“It was hilarious … We had so much fun doing that,” Newton-John told The Sault Star last week in a telephone interview from her Florida home.
Newton-John, who along with musician, producer and actor Marc Jordan - he appeared at the 2012 Algoma Fall Festival as part of Lunch At Allen’s - portrays hockey parents in the Canadian production.
“I like to do different things and I did Score: A Hockey Musical because the idea was fun and I liked the director (Michael McGowan) and to work with Mac was fun,” Newton-John said. “I just do things that are fun now. So that’s why I did it.”
Newton-John said she felt right at home at TIFF, not to mention in Toronto. “It was great. It was a blast. It was really good fun,” she added.
“I love Canada. I’ve always loved it. It’s like a merging of Australia and England.”
Newton-John’s stardom has extended far beyond the English-speaking world. The English-born Australian singer and actor is a four-time Grammy winner, racking up five No. 1 and 10 other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles. Eleven of her singles and 14 of her albums have been certified gold.
Her music runs the genre gamut: Newton-John has had pop, country and adult contemporary hits and has sold some 100 million albums worldwide.
This might not have happened had it not been for Newton-John’s versatility and adaptability. I Honestly Love You (1974), Let Me Be There (1974), Have You Never Been Mellow (1975), Please Mr. Please (1975), and Don’t Stop Believin’ (1976), established Newton-John’s country cred at the time. (Albeit not with some purists who branded her a foreigner.)
But as the decade wore on and musical tides shifted, she emerged, arguably, as one of a limited number of artists to have embraced the country/rock sound so commercially viable in the early 1970s, then carve out a solid niche in the more visually driven 1980s. Shifting gears enabled Newton-John to shine during the MTV era, when musical artists were expected to not only write, record and perform on stage, but adopt the role of actor in order to appear in single-accompanying videos.
Some adjusted (Rod Stewart and Newton-John were standouts), others didn’t. (Christopher Cross, who came along later but whose 1979 debut album was chock-full of memorable ballads and copped unlimited praise, virtually fizzled out by the mid-1980s.) Newton-John said there’s no doubt Grease, in which she co-starred with John Travolta in the 1978 film adaptation of the Broadway musical, and the 1980 musical Xanadu, helped equip her for the Klieg lights under which she’d play a starring role in one of the steamiest videos of the period.
“I think it’s twofold. (Musicals) equipped me and I had really good people around me … I was lucky,” Newton John said. “Grease and Xanadu helped me sustain.”
Indeed it was a much-different Newton-John who emerged in the 1980s. Gone was the fresh-faced country girl look, replaced by a much more sexy specimen, no longer asking, “Have you never been mellow?”, but demanding, “Let me hear your body talk.” (Compare the cover of the 1977 album Making a Good Thing Better to 1981’s sizzling Physical.)
In fact, the racy lyric of Physical’s title track prompted two Utah radio stations to ban the single from their playlists and, in 2010, Billboard magazine ranked the tune as the most popular single ever about sex.
“It was … I was banned,” laughed Newton-John more than three decades after the fact. “Now, to think, I was banned.” Compared to the tabloid coverage some celebrities shoulder these days, Newton-John’s exposure might be considered tame.
But she suffered the spotlight somewhat, including, in 2005, when a long time boyfriend disappeared following a fishing trip off the California coast and was never found. Newton-John, never a suspect in the disappearance, doesn’t discuss the matter. She returned to the tabloid headlines again in 2007 when it was revealed her daughter, Chloe, was recovering from anorexia.
Newton-John said she “feels sorry” for young celebrities today forever under the TMZ microscope, branding tabloid reporting on her personal life “someone’s fish and chip paper.”
As for Chloe Lattanzi, 26, also a singer and actress, life is going well, says her mother. “She has a wonderful voice and style … She is who she is,” said Newton-John, conceding being the daughter of such a famous parent, especially when trying to make a name in entertainment, has its assets and liabilities. “It’s a double-edged sword, a hard line to walk.”
Charity work and business interests take up much of Newton-John’s time now.
The breast cancer survivor’s music changed direction when, following her diagnosis in the early 1990s, her tunes took on a more reflective and personal tone; 1994’s Gaia: One Woman’s Journey chronicled her order and, in 2005, she released Stronger Than Before, whose proceeds benefited breast cancer research. In 2008, she raised funds to help build the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Center in Melbourne, Australia.
The musical shift would also see Newton-John penning more of her own material.
These days, she shares a Florida home with her husband, John Easterling, whom she married in 2008. She tours occasionally and, on the recording front, recently teamed up with Travolta for the seasonal album, This Christmas, the proceeds from which will be divided equally to their respective charities: the Jett Travolta Foundation and the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre.
An album highlight is the original song, I Think You Might Like It, a sequel to the pair’s Grease smash, You’re the One That I Want.
Newton-John said recording the album was a delight - even if it was done a bit off-season. A decorated studio lent some Yuletide cheer. “We don’t have to have Christmas now,” Newton-John laughed.