For The Wonder Of It All
’ SHE’S cuddled a Bengal tiger and been cuddled in turn by a Colombian boa constrictor. She’s kissed an Alaskan musk ox and romped with baby Russian bears.
So canoodling with crocodiles, kangaroos and galahs at Port Douglas was just another day at the office for Olivia Newton-John. But the business-like front Olivia puts on in the company of scary animals hasn’t always been there. Along the way to becoming the ultra-relaxed presenter of the Nine Network’s Wildlife program, Olivia has had to conquer fear of snakes (cured by the cuddly boa constrictor), heights (cured by climbing to the top of a rainforest canopy in Panama) and the sea (cured by scuba diving off Lizard Island on this trip).
It was love of animals, and concern for their welfare, that drew the internationally-recognised performer to the first Wildlife series, in 1994. With a successful recording and film (Grease, Xanadu) career, she’d had many offers of TV work, and rejected the lot. But when the Wildlife offer came, she decided she just had to do the show.
“I’m not interested in preaching,” she said. “I’m more interested in turning people on to the wonders of the planet. The best way to do that is through people, to look at the humans and their interaction with all the elements of nature. Their stories are an inspiration in themselves.”
They certainly inspired Olivia, who’s become the most public face of environmental concern. But Olivia says it was the birth of her daughter Chloe, in 1986, that really changed her life. “It put everything into perspective. I knew then that I owed her a safe environment to be brought up in, with clean air, clean water and clean food.”
Olivia, who divides her time between her farm in Australia and a home in Malibu, California, was in far north Queensland earlier this year to film Wildlife segments on Lizard Island and at the Port Douglas Rainforest Habitat. The pieces, which wrap up the round-the-world filming schedule for the current series, will be televised later this year. Olivia is negotiating with producers about whether to sign on for another series. “I did this series because I thought it was important to do,” she said. “But I had no idea it would be as successful as it has been. I love it, when you get to go to places like Lizard Island.”
The Barrier Reef holiday atmosphere was a contrast to some of the assignments Olivia’s had for Wildlife. The segment on Russian bears included a nine-hour nightmare drive from Moscow, then a hotel so spooky that Olivia and the crew ended up staying in the home of a biologist. Olivia and the Wildlife crew spent two relaxing weeks on Lizard Island» and in the Daintree rainforest. Port Douglas Habitat manager Doug Ryan said: “Olivia spent a lot of time with our local mayor, discussing measures being taken to ensure environmental damage is kept to a minimum. We act as an information centre for people interested in our rainforests, and visitors can see the kinds of animals native to the tropics. We have over 100 species here, including kangaroos, crocodiles and more than 650 birds. The species here might take someone years to see in the wild.”
As well as making friends with the animals and birds, Olivia made an impression on the humans as well. “She was lovely, and very natural,” Doug Ryan said. Olivia has her own private menagerie at her Malibu home. ”You could tell that she has a natural affinity for animals,” Doug said. “She does seem to have an honest concern for wildlife, and in particular, wildlife that is threatened. She was very good with the animals and seemed to be having a great time - and she herself looked great.”
You’d have to be a galah to disagree.
The Old Days
THE success of the ambitious natural life program Wildlife can only enhance the international reputation of Australia ’s own Olivia Newton-John. Australasian Post’s DARYL HOOD remembers a different Olivia, way back at the beginning.
THE interview was at 4.30pm. It couldn’t be any earlier because that’s when Olivia Newton-John got out of school. There she was, standing in the foyer of the old HSV7 studios in Dorcas St, South Melbourne. Okay, you aren’t supposed to have stray thoughts about kids in school uniform but, my God, those big, bright eyes. The young TV reporter, who worked on Melbourne’s late, great Herald newspaper, always claimed after Olivia became an international star that that foyer chat was her first press interview, and who’s going to argue? There’s not much danger the lady herself would remember it.
It was the mid-Sixties and Channel Seven had picked Olivia to replace ailing hostess Anne Watt - “Lovely Anne” — on Happy Hammond’s enormously popular afternoon children’s show. At that time Olivia was appearing in the children’s music show Brian And The Juniors, compered by Brian Naylor, now long-time newsreader on the Nine Network in Melbourne, and she had sung the occasional song on Happy’s show. But the hostess job was seen as her big break.
Well, it was, wasn’t it! Happy’s kids loved her. So did the station bosses, quickly slotting her into just about every variety and game show they were making. They were fizzy times for the young star and at the beginning, naturally enough, she was a little stunned. In rehearsals she would hang back, shy, in awe of everyone eIse’s talent, particularly that of her then boyfriend Ian Turpie. It seemed she was unsure whether it was all such a good idea for her.
But it was a good idea, and if Australians were proud of beautiful Livvy as she went onto Hollywood stardom, imagine how the young reporter felt, he could always claim, quite falsely, of course, that he had something to do with the start of it all.
Back in those days the press and the stars socialised a bit and after one particularly boisterous night at the old Australia Hotel, Olivia planted kisses on both the reporter’s cheeks. The story goes that three weeks later his editor called him in and told him his grubby face was giving the paper a bad name. “If you want it clean, you’ll have to clean it,” the reporter replied. “I’m not washing it again.”