Olivia Newton-John is a survivor

In the face of tragedy, cliches float to the surface because, no matter how trite they seemed ten days ago, they have the ring of truth now. Phrases like “God Bless America,” that part of the healing process is to “get back to your daily routine,” that baseball is “America’s Pastime,” and that terrorist Osama bin Laden is, according to President Bush, “Wanted dead or alive.”

The cliche that applies for this particular story is, “the show must go on.”

That’s why Olivia Newton-John will be performing this weekend in Atlantic City as scheduled.

The show had already gone on for the 53-year-old singer/actress, just 48 hours after the horrifying events in New York and Washington, when she performed a long-scheduled charity concert event in Dayton, Ohio. Sponsored by the Kettering Medical Center Foundation to benefit cardiac care, the $100,000 raised will now be given to the United Way, Red Cross, and the Adventists Disaster Relief Association.

It is no surprise that Ms. Newton-John was willing to pitch in. She had to face the personal tragedy of breast cancer, including a partial mastectomy and chemotherapy back in 1992. She could have hidden her illness as a matter of privacy, but chose instead to talk about her cancer in order to help other women facing the same battle.

But let’s move on to a brighter side of the Olivia Newton-John story. Her current North American “30 Musical Years Tour 2001” celebrates her three decades in show business.

She was born in England in 1948. Her mother was German, the daughter of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born, and her father went on to become headmaster of Ormond College in Melbourne when the family moved to Australia in 1953. Beginning her show business career as a teenager Down Under, she won a local Hayley Mills look-alike contest at age 12. She also formed a band called Sol Four with some school friends.

A few years later, after some minor success in Great Britain, she came to America, turned into a country music singing star, then a Top 40 icon, then a musical movie star one of the last of the millennium - opposite John Travolta in Grease. Her American career peaked with her biggest single hit to date, “Physical,” in 1981.

Since then she has keep up her international popularity (the fan website, “Only Olivia” is a tribute to her staying power), and found continued movie and television success in her native Australia. She also devoted herself to family matters and environmental organizations, and created her own clothing line, Koala Blue.

After her successful battle with breast cancer, she continued her career. Based in Los Angeles, she returned to her country music success of the 1970s with a return to Nashville, the 1998 release, Back With A Heart.

Her current U.S. tour is in support of a 30th anniversary boxed set of her hits. Her many hit songs include “Let Me Be There,” “If You Love Me (Let Me Know)”, “I Honestly Love You,” “You’re The One That I Want,” “Hopelessly Devoted To You,” “Summer Nights,” “A Little More Love,” “Magic,” “Xanadu” “Physical,” and “Make A Move On Me.”

Newton-John’s co-star during her US tour is her teenage daughter, Chloe Rose, born during her 11-year marriage to American dancer-actor Matt Lattanzi. Newton-John was quoted in an Australian magazine as saying that Chloe is, “really, really talented and a wonderfully gifted actress. If she wasn’t talented I wouldn’t be behind her. But, it’s in her blood. Both her father and I are in the business and she’s grown up around it so it’s natural for her.” She also told the Australian Associated Press that “I’ve had an incredible career and I feel very lucky and very blessed I am still going [strong]. I know the pitfalls but I am going to protect her as much as I can.”

Besides touring together, the mother and daughter acted together in an Australian TV movie, The Wilde Girls. In the movie, Newton-John plays a drug addicted rock star whose daughter wants to begin a career in the music industry.

Olivia Newton-John is also planning to write a book about her life, and has had meetings with networks and studios in Hollywood about putting her story on the big, or small, screen. She thought it was possible that “Maybe Chloe will play me.”

By Lori Hoffman