Why I Wasn't Gonna Give Into It
When Olivia Newton-John was battling against breast cancer, she firmly believed she would never write another song again. Two years later the Aussie songstress has just released a new album and claims she has never felt stronger.
The first thing you notice about Newton-John is her incredible warmth. Curled up on a sofa in her London hotel suit (it’s her first visit to the capital in three years she is bubbling with girlish good humor and answers any question about her illness fully and frankly. “When I was ill, I decided I was definitely going to retire but my higher self had other ideas for me and before I knew it I was back in the studio again,” she says “Making the album was a catharsis for me. The songs just started coming to me in the middle of the night. I’d wake up at three o’clock in the morning and get out of bed to write the lyrics down.”
“It’s my most personal album to date. It’s my baby.” The album, Gaia One Woman’s Journey (GAIA Is the Greek spirit of Mother Earth), chronicles Newton-John’s battle against the cancer that threatened to destroy her. Each song relates to a specific emotion or incident from Not Gonna Give Into It written after a chemotherapy session to Why Me written right after her surgery which removed part of her right breast.
After being diagnosed with the disease in July 1992. Newton-John finally received the all-clear eight months later. She puts her cancer down to stress caused largely by the collapse of her clothing business Koala Blue, in l991. “I really think that mind plays a great role in illness - if you’re stressed your immune system can’t function properly I’m a very spiritual person. and I decided to balance out the western medicine with eastern using homeopathy to counteract the chemotherapy as well as yoga, acupuncture, massage and meditation.”
A committed environmentalist, Newton-John lives on an Australian farm, eats organic produce recycles everything and has a water filtering system. She believes man-made pollutants may be responsible for rising illness among children “In our society we are bombarded at every local with chemicals” she says. “I am currently involved with a group funding research into children s diseases especially cancers that have increased so much in the last 10 years. We believe environmental sources are responsible and the children are ingesting levels of chemicals far too high for their body weight.”
After choosing quite deliberately, to go public with the news of her breast cancer. Newton-John received many letters from women who have drawn strength from her example “I’m glad I went public2 she says “It was good for me to confront the disease, but I hope it’s helped other people as well. I regularly speak to other breast cancer sufferers because my doctor and my oncologist keep me in touch with new patients so that I can tell them what to expect It’s nice to be able to pass on information, help them keep their spirits up. and give them ideas books to read and things to do.”
Throughout Newton-John’s ordeal, husband Matt Lattanzi was by her side but daughter Chloe then just six years old. knew nothing of her mother’s illness. “Chloe had already just lost her best friend to cancer and to her, cancer meant death. When she found out about it later she said, Mummy, why didn’t you tell me I could’ve taken care of you? But it was the right decision at the time. Now she’s older I would never keep anything from her.”
Over that last year Newton-John has had to deal with persistent rumours about a split with husband an actor l1 years her junior who she met on the set of Xanadu. She firmly denies that her marriage is of the rocks but admits the newspaper reports get to her. “I’ve been in the public eye since I was 15, and the only time I really get upset is if it’s going to affect my daughter’s happiness or my husband’s happiness or that of my friends and family I get especially upset about all the marriage stuff, but I realise that it’s tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper and I just get on with my life.”
At 46. Newton-John is still strikingly beautiful but says she no longer sees herself as sexy “I know I can’t compare with 20-year-olds and I don’t want to.”
“I just did a television movie where I played a mum. I think that’s probably more my area now.” Propelled to sex symbol status by the movie Grease and her subsequent hit song Physical banned by some US radio stations because of its supposed sexual innuendo, Newton-John says she’s a shy girl-next-door at heart.
“I was just acting out these different roles” she says. “I’m not a natural performer, and it takes some effort for me to sing in front of hundreds of people to tell you the truth. Recently, I stood up at a party with about 30 people in the room and sang with just a backing tape, which is something I haven’t done for years. It was a nice feeling to have the confidence to it again”.
By Claudia Pattison