Single, sexy and coming home
A big storm is brewing in Malibu. Everyone is battening down, preparing for the worst. Only Olivia Newton-John seems remarkably cheerful as she takes off in her four-wheel drive to join the long queue of parents’ cars inching through the rain towards daughter Chloe’s school.
Olivia’s star is in the ascendancy again. In February, she embarks on her first big tour of Australia and New Zealand in well over a decade, with Cliff Richard. She is releasing a new album, her first in five years. And there’s the upcoming 20th anniversary of the hit movie Grease, certain to generate another wave of adulation for Olivia and co-star John Travolta.
But for the moment, Olivia focuses on what she considers to be her most important job motherhood. “There she is!” cries Olivia as 11- year-old Chloe comes running through the puddles. “So how was your day’?” she asks, as Chloe settles into the bock seat, with Pomeranian puppy, Rouge, who came along for the ride. No matter what else is happening, Olivia is firm about always either picking up Chloe or dropping her off to school.
“I enjoy it,” says Olivia. “We talk. This is an important time. It, is my life … I’m just a regular mum.”
We drive through big gates, down a small, steep driveway to the huge white house by the sea that is home to Olivia, Chloe, two cockatiels called Rainbow and Tweety, dogs Rouge, Snowy, a bijou, and Ebony, a labrador, cats Flea and Caesar, and a recent addition to Olivia’s private animal kingdom, Tigger the ginger kitten.
Spilling down the cliff over five levels, Olivia’s house has spectacular ocean views But, inside it, is a family house full of warmth 1ove and music “A mix of Santa Fe and Sardinia”, the house was designed by Olivia’s former husband Matt Lattanzi, and an architect friend.
“You’ll notice there are no squares,” points out Olivia. “Every corner is curved. It’s like a sculpture. No matter where you sit, there’s something beautiful to look at.”
In keeping with Olivia’s concern for the environment, all the timber is from cultivated forests. The ceiling beams are whole, fallen logs. The insulation based on seaweed. The paint non-toxic.
Over herbal tea, Olivia sinks into a comfy sofa and talks about her life. She is friendly, honest, down-to-earth, and peaceful to be around. Barefoot, dressed simply, Olivia looks stunning. Refreshed. Re-born. Life, Olivia believes, goes in cycles. And this is her new phase as a woman and a performer.
“It’s my fifth year free of breast cancer, and I’m a single parent,” she says thoughtfully, “so it is a kind of re-birth for me.” Together, Olivia and Chloe have a great time. “Chloe’s at that pubescent stage, but we talk, which is wonderful,” Olivia says. “She’s bright, talented, sensitive and sweet. And she has a good relationship with her dad. He’s coming back to live in the US. so she’ll have him around and that’s wonderful.”
Becoming single again was a “a big adjustment” for Olivia. “If you’re used to being a partner and having that person always with you, then it’s a big jolt to be single again,” she says. “But it’s a process. There’s no quick answer to it.”
Is there someone special in her life? “I knew you’d ask that,” she says, with a smile and a shake of her head. “I don’t want to talk about that, except to say I’m happy, centred and love my life.”
In plain daylight, the 49-year-old looks as youthful as on the stylish Panasonic TV commercials. “Oh, do I? Thank you,” she says modestly.
She really hasn’t changed all that much since Grease, and hardly a day goes by that some child doesn’t see Olivia and exclaim, “Oooh … you’re Sandy!” “Yeah, I know it was a long time ago,” remarks Olivia, rolling her eyes. “No, look, they’re not that rude, but now and again you get that look.”
Grease with enhanced colour, sound “and a new scene I can’t tell you about” is about to be re-released in cinemas throughout the US and the rest of the world.
As to how a movie about a bunch of teenagers at high school made its way into cinematic history to achieve near cult status, Olivia has some very clear ideas: Grease she says, is timeless. It had great music, vivid characters who are larger than life, and a great energy. And despite reports to the contrary… no, Olivia and John Travolta very definitely did not enjoy a heavy romance. But as a friend, she gives him a glowing report. “John tells people he loves them,” says Olivia. “He’s not shy about loving. He’s kind, genuine, very funny and brilliant.”
Whenever Olivia’s name crops up, so does the speculation that she’s had a facelift or takes the seaweed extract Imedeen. But it’s “no” on both counts. It’s more luck, in that Olivia has “a youthful-looking mother so good genes” and the fact that she looks after herself “without being self-obsessed”. Olivia’s beauty regime includes a cosmetics range called Marae. She hardly drinks, doesn’t smoke, eats only a little meat and prefers organically grown foods. She meditates daily, drinks a lot of water, walks or runs on the beach and works out at a local gym.
“If I want to feel good, I need to do some exercise every day,” she says. She also “takes about every vitamin” and a range of herbs called Rainforest Bioenergenics. When she was on chemotherapy, she had homeopathy and herbal treatments that have become a part of her life. “And I give them to Chloe, too,” she says.
As well as being an exclusive coastal paradise just up the road from smoggy Los Angeles, Malibu can be a wild place to live, with its mud slides, fires, floods and king tides. “I think my Australian upbringing made me choose a place that has so many natural disasters, so I’d feel at home,” says Olivia, laughing. “Everything happens here. I love it. I wouldn’t trade it.”
Along with her farm near Byron Bay in NSW, Olivia believes she has the best of both worlds. (“And please say hello to my best friend from Ballina, Johanne Story,” pleads Chloe, hopping from one foot to the other).
Olivia is looking forward to coming home to tour, because it means she can enjoy an Australian summer. Importantly, it’s the planned “comeback” that was shelved at the last minute when she found she had cancer. “Everything was set, yet I had this feeling I wasn’t going to do this tour. Something inside me said it wouldn’t happen. Isn’t that weird?” she says.
Olivia had a modified mastectomy and reconstruction. At the time, she chose not to tell Chloe, who had recently lost a close friend from cancer. “I couldn’t find the right words,” explains Olivia simply. Not until they were in Australia, while Olivia was recuperating, did Chloe learn about it through a story in a local magazine. “She was really mad at me,” Olivia recounts. “She felt I had broken her trust. But I did what I thought was right at the time. She understands now.”
The cancer turned out to be a “special gift” for Olivia, taking her on a journey of self-discovery. Once, she feared “growing old, performing, dying you name it”. Now she makes herself do the things that scare her. On the Nine Network’s Wildlife series she faced and beat her fear of heights, being under water and snakes.
Her new and soon-to-be-released album, tentatively titled Back With A Heart, took her to Nashville. “It was a great experience,” says Olivia, who performed at three charity concerts in the Tennessee capital. “I’m ready now.” A track from Olivia’s new album plays in the background. It is a superb rendition of I Honestly Love You.
Olivia’s voice sounds strong, confident, and she tells of the time, more than a year ago, when she was anxious for the first time in her life about losing it. “I had a very sore throat,” admits Olivia. “It got me thinking. I’d always taken my voice for granted, but it made me realise it is a God-given talent, a gift to be used.”
When Cliff Richard invited her to join him on his 40th anniversary tour, it seemed the “perfect entry” back to the stage. “Our voices blend well, and I feel safe with Cliff because he’s my friend,” she says.
Accredited with launching Olivia’s career when he invited her, a young unknown, to appear on his television show in the early ’70s, England’s Peter Pan and Australia’s girl-next-door have remained close. Whenever Cliff is in Los Angeles, he visits. “He’s a lovely, charming man,” says Olivia.
Chloe will be on holiday and will travel with her mother for some of the tour. The rest of the time she will spend with her father. “We’re good friends,” Olivia says of the man to whom she was married for 11 years. The parting was amicable. “With Matt working in Australia, we’d go there and he’d come here to see Chloe,” Olivia says matter-of-factly. “Now that he will be back, I won’t have specific days set out. He’ll have Chloe when he can and that will be wonderful.”
So how do they manage to be so civilised? “I think you have to put the child first,” observes Olivia. “I think in a lot of divorces the child becomes the weapon and gets pulled in all directions. I believe, no matter what, the child needs both parents.
So how would Olivia describe her life? “Mmm…blessed”
By Carol George