Mum is the word - interview and pics
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Olivia Newton-John has promised major new revelations in her forthcoming autobiography. Here, in her first ever interview, Olivia’s 16-year-old daughter Chloe describes life with her mother and her own blossoming career.
Interview by Angela Mollard
A Chloe Lattanzi bounces into the foyer of a boutique hotel in Melbourne, I peer over her shoulder, half-expecting her mother, Olivia Newton-John, to be following behind. But no, Chloe is here on her own and, with a confidence borne of her American roots rather than her years, she politely orders peppermint tea.
Sixteen it’s such an indefinable age. Not quite adult, yet no longer child. Surely Olivia, now 53, is pacing the floor in the suite above, anxious about how her daughter will cope in this, her first major interview. “Is your mum nervous about you talking to the press?” I ask. “Oh, no,” says Chloe, “she trusts me. She knows I’m sensible.”
In the event, Olivia docs pop-down an hour or so later, ostensibly to check something at reception. She glances over, not quite sure whether to approach, but when Chloe, who is recounting some childhood story, suddenly bursts into laughter, I see her mother smile and quietly slip away.
Chloe, with her long, dark hair and glossy olive skin, seems to share few of her mother’s physical characteristics, but she has inherited that extraordinary Newton-John smile. It is gorgeous, wholesome and luminous and, coupled with Olivia’s silky voice, made her an international star Chloe is hoping to achieve the same success.
At 16, she is the age her mother was in 1964 when she won a talent contest and the prize of a trip to London. As Olivia will relate in her forth coming autobiography, she never looked back, becoming a pup princess and the star of Grease, the most successful film musical ever.
But Chloe doesn’t want to talk about any of that. It’s her turn and she’s desperate to become a star in her own right. “I love my mom and she’s a huge part of my life, but I want to be recognised for myself, not as someone else’s daughter.”
She acknowledges that by pursuing a pop career she will inevitably have to live with a life-time of comparison but points out, rather indignantly, that she has no other option.
“I don’t think people should be criticised for wanting to do the same thing because it runs in the family,” she says. “It’s hurtful somehow, because it’s ridiculous. It’s like Goldie Hawn’s daughter, Kate Hudson, she hasn’t deliberately separated herself from her mum, but she’s made a good job of having her own identity.”
Although she has chosen Australia as the place to test her talents, there is no mistaking that Chloe is American. The only child from her mother’s ten-year marriage to actor and dancer Matt Lattanzi, Chloe was raised largely in Malibu, where Pamela Anderson, Mel Gibson and Pierce Brosnan are neighbours.
Yet Australia, where her mother continues to be a national icon, offers a safe start. Last month, Chloe took her first stage role, performing in the Sixties hippy musical Hair, and she has made a pilot as a co-host for a youth music programme called Evolution. She has also been signed by Australian pop star Vanessa Amorosi’s manager to record her first album.
When, I wonder, does she find time to go to school? Surly the woman who so memorably played the prissy Sandy in Grease wouldn’t let her daughter become a drop-out?
Chloe pulls nervously at her sleeves and picks her words carefully. This is clearly a question she and her mum have rehearsed. “I’m taking a little bit of a break right now. I think education is really important and I don’t want to advise anyone to drop out, but I found I was always thinking about music and I really want to do it.”
“My parents and I both share the belief that if you reach a certain age and you’ve found your passion and you’re willing to put everything into it, then you must do it. They believe in me and I have a lot of ambition.” In any case, what could Olivia say when she had done the same thing?
At 13, in the same manner that other children ask for new jeans or a bike, Chloe asked for an agent. She had already muscled in on her mother’s singing lessons, where the coach conceded that she had a great voice, though huskier than her mother’s. When the pair toured America last year, performing in sell-out concerts, Chloe added a rhythm and blues element to her mother’s pop.
Singing to middle-aged mothers is not Chloe’s ambition, but she was smart enough to realise that a debut in front of her mother’s adoring and loyal fans was an ideal learning experience.
In an era of teenage sensations such as Britney Spears, it is no surprise that Chloe is already desperate for success. She had to audition for her role as Chrisy in Hair along with everyone else and became the youngest member of the 67-strong cast. “At first I thought it was a story about a hair dressing salon,” she confesses.
Olivia, who has spent the past six months in Australia supporting her daughter’s new career, would pack Chloe off to rehearsals each day with a flask of tea. When the script dictated that Chloe briefly appear node on stage, she let her daughter decide whether to strip off. “Initially, I thought I would because it’s such a natural, beautiful part of the show, but then I felt a bit young to be doing that,” says Chloe. “Even though it was artistic expression, I felt it wasn’t appropriate for me and I want to keep my body for myself.”
She loved being part of a large cast, but was aware that the other actors would often stop talking about certain subjects when she was around. It’s a dilemma you face when you interview her. She’s not yet a Britney or a Charlotte Church, surrounded by agents and PRs who have briefed her on the correct response to each question.
Instead, she’s disarmingly candid, exuding the same sense of trust and sweetness that made her mother the queen of squeaky clean. She talks determinedly about her goals and is very Los Angeles-style spiritual - “I love trees and animals” yet when she yawns, deeply and repeatedly, you’re reminded that she’s still an adolescent who needs 12 hours sleep a night.
If you were a child at Malibu High School you might envy Chloe Lattanzi. She’s pretty, lives in a house overlooking the Pacific Ocean and her mother’s connections mean that while fame is not guaranteed, she has a head start. Yet fame and fortune are no buffers to suffering, something Olivia, and consequently Chloe, have learned in recent years.
Just when it seemed life was perfect, the family suffered a string of tragedies. First, Olivia’s god-daughter and Chloe’s best friend, five-year-old Colette Chuda, died of cancer. Then, in the summer of 1992, Olivia’s father Brinly died from the same cruel disease. Just a day later, she learned that she also had cancer. The malignant tumour in Olivia’s breast was removed and she had a partial mastectomy, chemotherapy and reconstructive surgery. The treatment ended any plans she might have had for more children.
She had hardly recovered when her marriage to Matt Lattanzi, 11 years her junior, foundered after he became close to 23-year-old student Cindy Jessup. Divorce inevitably ensued and Olivia, whose own parents divorced when she was ton, was devastated by the collapse of her dream.
It was bad when my parents divorced. I was eight and I felt angry. I went through a deep depression. I couldn't understand why they didn't just make up.
Later, she said it was the divorce which was truly unbearable because she couldn’t shelter the person she loved most. I read Chloe a quote from an interview given four years ago by Olivia. “Divorce hurts your child,” she says. “I could deal with the pain, but I couldn’t stop my child’s pain. You can’t be prepared, so how can a child be?”
Chloe leans over and re-read her mother’s words. For a few seconds she fights back tears, then says “Yes, it was bad, I was eight and I felt angry and went through a deep depression. I couldn’t understand why they didn’t just make up.
“They did their best to shelter me, but I did catch a few fights. Fortunately, they’ve stayed friends and my mum gets on really well with Dad’s wife, Cindy. That’s made it easier for me, but so has the passing of time - when I look back I don’t remember the bad things, just the good times.”
Unfortunately, her mother’s attempts to shelter her from the breast cancer backfired. Olivia had not told Chloe, then six, that she was ill. It was one of her classmates who broke the news.
Recalls Chloe: “This awful brat ran up to me and said ‘Your mother has breast cancer. Your mum is dying.’ I remember crying my eyes out. Later, when I asked Mum about it, she said the had a beauty mark that needed to be removed. I told her that I had beauty marks and they were just fine, but she insisted that the doctors had to take this one out.”
She has no memories of seeing her mother sick in bed, but she does remember walking away from the hospital holding her father’s hard. “I couldn’t understand why Mummy couldn’t come home with us.”
She applauds her mother’s efforts in using her illness to help raise awareness of breast cancer, but has yet to be tested for the disease herself. She’s clearly uncomfortable discussing the subject until I remember that she’s only 16- and, sure enough, she’s a bit embarrassed about the whole subject.
She doesn’t worry about the statistics that show breast cancer is often hereditary: “I trust in the universe and I think I’m healthy. If I get it then God will get me through it, whether that means life or death. I don’t think it will happen though.”
Somewhere in their Malibu home, Olivia must have a pile of awards. During the Seventies she was showered with plaudits and was twice voted Top British Female Vocalist of the Year. Grease, in which she starred opposite John Travolta, made her a household name and she has sold more than 60 million records worldwide.
Yet there have been times in her career when projects have bombed, most notably her sports wear enterprise, Koala Blue. During the Eighties it was one of the most famous stores on LA’s trendy Melrose Avenue, but by 1992 the business was bankrupt. Chloe, spared details of the fluctuations in her mother’s fortunes, has the optimism of youth and the belief that hard work and talent will bring success. “I don’t think about failure,” she says, “I don’t think anyone my age does.”
Yet she is glad she wasn’t a child actor, a Macauley Culkin, for instance. After appearing, aged seven, in an Australian soap and a television movie called A Christmas Romance, she put her acting on hold.
She tried to have a normal childhood, doing the usual activities, from tennis and swimming to kick boxing and soccer. She choreographed the school dance group and took private dance lessons. “I wouldn’t say I’m the greatest dancer in the world, but I’ve inherited my dad’s rhythm,” she says.
Last year she relaunched her acting career, starring alongside her mother in a TV film called The Wilde Girls. She also made a guest appearance on Bette Midler’s family sitcom, Bette. Yet her dream is to sing. “I’d love to be able to share my music with the world. I’ve seen the benefits of being a public figure. I’ve seen my mother do so many wonderful things for people - like take her friends to Paris. She uses her fame to influence the world in such a positive way”.
Asked what she admires in her mother, the words come tumbling out: ‘I don’t think my mam has a bad quality - she’s doesn’t let fame get to her. She’s not snobby and treats everyone the same. She’s compassionate and selfless, not selfish. She looks at me to check: “You know what I mean don’t you the difference between selfish and selfless?”
She’s utterly endearing. The combination of fame, the LA lifestyle and being an only child could have produced a brat, yet she’s anything but. She breaks off the interview to thank the waiter for her tea and as we speak she cups her hand over the tiny pimple on her chin. While in Australia she has missed her boyfriend “He’s my first serious one” and her friends. On one occasion, she offers an opinion, then quickly retracts it, saying “Actually, that’s not true. I hadn’t really thought about that.”
The only time she gets a bit silly is when I ask her about Prince William. Having read on a web site that he had given up his obsession with Britney Spears and had now “built a shrine to Chloe Lattanzi” (this is genuinely what it said), she jumps out of her chair and throws her hands over her mouth. “Shut up, you’re kidding me, shut up, she squeals. When she settles down she wants to know everything, “Wow, that’s probably not true, but if it is it’s really flattering. Prince William is gorgeous and he’s a good person, too. I saw a documentary about him he was chopping wood and he looked just like a normal person.”
She thinks for a few seconds: “I suppose he’s like me he had a great mum to teach him really important values.”