Work helps singer heal
By Cindy Pearlman, New York Times Syndicate
Her 1970s glory days might be long gone, but Olivia Newton-John is still a star.
That becomes apparent as the Australian singer-actress steps out of ABC’s TV studios in Chicago. As if from nowhere, a crowd appears.
“Can you sign this piece of paper to my daughter?” asks a 50-something man, chattering and smiling in the 30-degree fall air. “She’s playing Sandy in her high-school play, Grease.”
A loading-dock operator catches the flash of blond hair and hears the distinctively sweet voice, so he approaches, the boombox on his shoulder still blasting away. The 58-year-old Newton-John hears the Tejano music and breaks into an impromptu salsa dance.
“This is the happiest Monday morning of my life,” the man says.
Newton-John is also finding reasons to smile after surviving what must seem like years of Monday mornings. She has endured a career downturn, a bout with breast cancer and the disappearance of Patrick McDermott, her boyfriend of eight years, who has not been seen since a boat trip on June 30, 2005.
McDermott is thought by some to have fallen overboard and perished, but others have suggested that he faked his death to escape personal and financial problems. Newton-John won’t address the rumors.
“I’m at peace as much as I can be these days,” Newton-John says. “There are days that are difficult and days that are great.”
She is on a nationwide tour for several projects, including her new album, Grace and Gratitude, and a variety of breast-wellness products.
Grace and Gratitude was born when Newton-John teamed up with Toronto singer-songwriter producer Amy Sky.
“She had written a beauty song called Serenity, based on the Serenity Prayer,” Newton-John says. “I recorded that a few years ago. I loved singing that song so much, and it did so much for me emotionally, that Amy said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to do an entire album filled with inspirational songs?”
Newton-John simply filed the idea away in her mind.
“Then I had kind of a tough year,” she says. “Amy called me and said, ‘Music is very healing.’ I thought that it would be great to have an album to focus on.”
Newton-John’s life changed 14 years ago, when she felt a lump in her breast. Doctors said it was nothing, but the singer was sure something was wrong.
“My father was dying at the time,” she says. “I had my surgery, flew out to see my father, and then I found out that I did have cancer. It was all happening at the same time.”
Even so, the singer feels blessed to have caught the cancer early, and 13 years of check-ups have shown her cancer-free.
“I’m someone who has never been bored for a moment with life,” Newton-John says. “Surviving cancer just illuminated those feelings. Life is too interesting.”
She made her name as a singer, but achieved seeming immortality by playing good-girl Sandy, “lousy with virginity,” opposite John Travolta in the hit film Grease (1978).
“That movie just doesn’t die down,” she says. “I get asked about it all the time. People just love that movie.”
Since then, her career has gradually cooled. She scored her last major hit with the period-defining single Physical (1981).
Her focus at the moment is her 20-year-old daughter. Chloe, a blossoming singer.
“She’s singing in the show,” Newton-John says.
“I feel really fortunate that I get to do the only thing I know how to do. And people still turn up to listen to me. It’s amazing!”