Olivia and Chloe life is precious - Australian Women's Weekly

Olivia and Chloe life is precious

10s

thanks to Kay

Note - This New Zealand edition is same article as was Australian edition of Australian Women's Weekly (Dec 2019) but here Olivia and Chloe aren't the main cover photo.

A golden sun sets behind thunderheads and rolling hills. To the east, a double rainbow arcs across a darkening sky. It feels like a blessing. Rainbows are special talismans for Olivia Newton-John. They’ve lit up significant moments of her life and offered her hope. Rainbows are special to me, she says simply, stopping to look up, acknowledge the beauty in the sky and snap a picture on her phone.

This is an extraordinary time in Olivia's life. Last night, she celebrated her 70th birthday. Some of the people she holds dearest partied on the patio and by the pool at friend Gregg Cave’s house, nestled in farmland and forest just west of Byron Bay and across the valley from the Gaia Retreat 8c Spa, which he, Olivia and friends founded 14 years ago. Gregg, who calls her Blondie, has known Olivia for 37 years and plainly adores her. He went shopping at the local markets for her birthday and came back with a brooch and a shawl, but he insists (in the words of reggae star Peter Tosh) that she needs nothing but love. Another dear friend created a birthday pavlova filled with lemon curd and cream and decorated with mauve and violet flowers. And, most crucially, Olivia’s husband, John Easterling, and her daughter, Chloe Lattanzi, who is 33 and also a singer and an actor, were here to celebrate with her. There’s a lot of love in the air.

But the party is 12 months late.Las t year, when Olivia really turned 70, she spent her birthday in her own Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness 8c Research Centre in Melbourne, recovering from a fractured sacrum brought about by a weakening of her bones associated with treatment for stage-four cancer. Her hospital stay triggered tabloid reports of her death, to which Olivia responded with an online video in which she laughed that rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

But the rumours did hurt. It can be upsetting, because you’re trying to heal and then people are kind of burying you, she admits.I tell my friends, ‘Don’t believe what you read in the tabloids, unless you hear it from me.’ But still, there’s a constant cleaning up that you’ve got to do. I’ve accepted it. I don’t like it, but there’s no point getting too upset about it because that’s the business I’m in and I have such a blessed life. Chloe is less forgiving. That made me so angry, she says, because I’m protective of my mom. If you do think someone is sick, surely the decent thing to do is leave them alone. Or be supportive, Olivia adds.

A full year has passed since then, and much healing. Today, Olivia has invited The Australian Women’s Weekly to spend some time with her and with Chloe, at Gaia. It’s been a long day of chatting, dressing up for the camera and showing us her favourite parts of the property - the tree under which she planted some of new-age teacher Liz Hayes’ ashes, the serene new yoga room, the view to the Pacific where whales are breaching on their way south for the summer. John arrives around midday with fresh juices for Olivia and Chloe that he’s pressed in the kitchen, but otherwise Olivia barely stops. Through it all, she is generous and patient and joyful, and she does look well - her eyes are bright, she moves easily. Perhaps there is still a little pain but she is aglow.

As night falls, we make cups of tea and settle in a cosy candle-lit lounge, lined with weavings and cushions like a Bedouin tent. The candles make us think of Christmas, and Olivia and Chloe begin to reminisce. They chat for more than an hour and we share their open and heartfelt conversation.

What were your childhood memories of Christmas?
Olivia: In Germany, they celebrate on Christmas Eve and, because my mum was German, we followed a lot of those traditions. My dad [who was a university professor] didn’t get involved very much because he was always working. But mum would make Christmas gifts, and do potato cuts. She would cut potatoes in half, carve a design, dip that in dye and make tablecloths. When you mentioned Christmas, I thought of that. We had stockings, too, and I remember getting an orange and nuts - just little gifts. Christmas was not a big, lavish thing like we have now, but it was lovely. I also remember music. My father was a beautiful singer, so we would sing carols around the piano.

Chloe, how do you feel about Christmas time?
Chloe: I’m starting to care a little bit more about it now. Now Christmas means I get to see all my intimate family and spend a lot of time with my mom, so that’s important. When I was younger it meant all these strangers were going to take my mom away from me.
Olivia: I used to take in a lot of people at Christmas time...
Chloe: And I don’t think I understood how much my parents’ divorce affected me. [Chloe’s father, the actor Matt Lattanzi, and Olivia divorced in 1995.] Now I’ve realised that family is so healing. Being around your family and having a meal and being able to all go to bed in the same house - that is safety. I love Christmas now because of that warmth and connection.

Olivia: Chloe’s dad and I, and our spouses, are good friends, so we have Christmas together and birthdays. We’re very close.
Chloe: My fantasy is for all of us to live on the same property. Life’s so short. I want to spend every minute with the people I love.

Your parents were divorced too, Olivia, at a time when divorce wasn’t common. Was that difficult?
Olivia: My parents split up when I was about nine. It was tough. I don’t remember how I felt, but I remember one of my teachers taking me to the zoo and then taking me home. I think they were checking to see where I lived. I was a latchkey kid because Mum had to go to work. It was unusual for a teacher to spend the afternoon with you, so she must have been concerned in some way, but I was fine. I was always a pretty happy kid, though I missed my dad and I could tell my mum was unhappy. We went from living in the university to a little apartment, and I would see my dad after school a couple of afternoons a week. That was hard. I remember sitting outside waiting for him. Then he left Melbourne and took a job in Newcastle, and I would go and visit him just twice a year.

When you were 15, your mum packed up and moved with you to England. How did you feel about that?
Olivia: I didn't want to go and I was mad at her. She dragged me, kicking and screaming. Now I’m so grateful, because she had the wisdom to see a future. If I’d stayed in Australia, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities to do what I’ve done. She could see that. I couldn’t see that. I was 15 years old and it was all about the boyfriend [Australian actor Ian Turpie] and the local TV show [Time for Terry] that I was lucky enough to be doing. But she had the wisdom, and thank goodness she had the strength, to make me do it. She was a very wise woman.

Were there things that you learned from her about being a mother- both the good and the bad?
Olivia: I’m sure I have re-enacted some of the things my mother did because you can’t help it - that’s in your DNA. It’s monkey see, monkey do.

What did having Chloe mean to you?
Olivia: When people ask me what is the most important thing that’s happened in my life, I say it was having her. Nothing compares to having a child. She is a young woman now, but those maternal feelings never change. So it’s been just an amazing gift. I wasn’t able to have any more, so she is the lucky egg, as her dad calls her.

What are the times you spend together that you treasure most?
Olivia: It’s all precious.
Chloe: It’s the simple things, the little things. We like to go shopping at CVS [a US pharmacy chain] or watch some mind-numbing television and laugh, cuddled up on the couch.
Olivia: Taking the dogs to the vet...
Chloe: Those are the things, when we just get to be normal.

How much time do you spend together?
Chloe: A lot more recently. I love seeing my mom. It’s good medicine. When I don’t see my mom for a long time, it’s like I feel ill. When I’m with her, it feels like all is right with the world. She makes me feel safe.
Olivia: When Chloe is with me, I feel complete. There’s that expression, You’re only as happy as your unhappiest child So, if Chloe’s not happy, I’m not happy, and, if she’s doing well, so am I. It affects me - how she is so to see her radiant and happy and healthy makes me feel...

You do both look radiant. Are you feeling that way?
Olivia: I’m feeling really well.

Did your mum make you feel safe?
Olivia: That’s a good question. I’ve never thought of it.
Chloe: I didn’t always feel that way. I do now, in this part of our relationship, but I think the teenage years are difficult for everyone, and I think moms are afraid for their children.
Olivia: Like Chloe and I, my teenage years were difficult for my mum - really difficult - but, when I lode back, I can see that she was wise and firm and she did the right things.

Chloe, can you share some of the memories you have of living in Australia when you were small?
Chloe: I remember drives with my dad. He would play Deep Forest. I remember running barefoot through the rainforest. I remember kids being really mean at school. I think because I was Olivia’s daughter. One girl was jealous that her best friend wanted to be friends with me. It was at school that some kid ran up to me and said, I read your mum’s got cancer and she’s going to die. And I hit him.
Olivia: Did you?
Chloe: My dad told me that. That’s why I had to be sent home. I wasn’t a violent kid. I was a passive, gentle soul but I think I just snapped because I was really protective of my mom. I don’t remember it. I’ve blocked it out. I remember running into the school, sobbing and saying, I hate this place, everybody’s so mean.

Did you worry about Chloe being bullied because she was your daughter?
Olivia: No, I wasn’t aware of bullying. I didn’t have that experience at school. For me, I saw this cute little school in northern NSW, this little rural place where the kids ran barefoot around the schoolyard.
Chloe: But I met my best friend, Joanne, there. And I do love Australia. It holds a lot of beautiful memories as well. There’s light and dark - that’s what life is like.

You were back in the US by late primary school. Was that better?
Chloe: That’s when my anxiety started... I had just lost a friend to cancer a couple of years earlier and then I found out my mom had cancer. I pretended to be sick a lot so I didn't have to go to school. People got mad at me, and were saying, Why are you skipping school? But I was terrified, I was having panic attacks and I didn’t know what I had was anxiety disorder.

How have you learned to deal with anxiety? Has it been a huge journey?
Chloe: Oh, my God, yes. My fiancé, James [Driskill], is the person who taught me to heal these things with meditation, mindfulness. I’d been to a thousand different treatment centres, but I found that what helped were family, love and spirituality. I’m not talking about religion. I’m talking about finding that the universe is within you and connecting to that power and realising that the way that you shape the world within here [Chloe points to her heart) manifests the way the world is out there. So, for about a year, James and I had a schedule where there was no social media, no TV, we meditated for an hour in the morning and an hour at night, I would read a new book every week. And I thought, Oh, my God, this is the cure for almost everything. The world is sick, I believe, and it’s hard not to fall ill in an ill society. Now I feel I’ve really started to come into wellness.

Olivia, some of your forebears were Jewish and others protestant, and I always imagine your grandfather, Max Born, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics, as an academic atheist. How would you describe your own sense of the spiritual?
Olivia: I had an agnostic mother. Her father was a scientist, so she wasn’t religious. But my father was Presbyterian. He had parents who would wash his mouth out with soap if he said the wrong thing or swore. He came from a strict, rigid family. My mother came from a very relaxed, academic family. So I was caught between two worlds, which is really interesting because it’s left me open to spirituality but not particularly one path. I see all of them as interesting and valid. I chant with my Buddhist friends and go to mass with my Catholic friends. I have my own connection.

Chloe mentioned earlier that she had a friend, Colette, who died when they were both very young. In your memoir, you talk about standing in the wings, about to go on stage, just after you'd learned Colette had died and...
Olivia: I felt her...
You felt her presence. Do you believe in an afterlife? Are you conscious of people who have passed on?
Olivia: I see them, I hear them. Whether we imagine it or we don’t, it doesn’t matter, but I do. I had a close friend die recently, Audrey, and I hear her voice. Things happen all the time and I go, Oh, that’s Audrey.

Do you feel you've lived before?
Olivia: I feel that I have had a relationship before with my husband, and we’ve reconnected. I’ve had several experiences like that, so I guess I believe it. But that’s just my experience. I don’t claim to know for everybody else. It’s just a feeling we both have.

What are the challenges facing Chloe's generation of women that you didn't have to face?
Olivia: I think we faced the same things, we just dealt with them differently. Now young women stand up to things that go on. We used to just pretend they didn’t happen. I’m sure just about every girl I knew was inappropriately touched or advanced on by a guy, but we accepted it. Now women are going, Uh-uh, you’re not going to treat me like that. I think that’s a wonderful change. But it’s tough for the young ones, because they’re trying to keep up with those images of perfection that aren’t real.
Chloe: It’s the inside stuff that matters. It’s the inner work. That’s what social media never talks about. People are celebrated for how much money they make or what they look like. I want to use my minor celebrity to remind people they are amazing inside. I was suffering (from anxiety and anorexia) and I only healed when I realised that all the stuff inside me is what’s amazing. Not the outside. I was fixated on the outside.
Olivia: Is that too deep?
Chloe: No, this is what the world needs - less bullshit, more real talk.And then you might inspire someone.

Darkness has gathered around us now, a gentle rain is falling on broad rainforest leaves and the garden lights have come on to guide guests to their rooms. Olivia is tired, but we all are. There was a moment earlier in the day when she said, so softly that we barely hear her; This could be my last photo shoot. No one commented and we were left to wonder whether it was just a private musing. She sounded happy at the prospect - not melancholy at all. The Grammy Awards, the arena shows, the iconic roles like Sandy in Grease were highlights of a stellar career, but one gets the sense that Olivia has moved on. Certainly, her life now is focused on the simple things, the things that bring her happiness and meaning.

I just want to continue to enjoy life, she explains, as we pack up. I like working with the centre, of course, to win over cancer. I’d like to see that happen before I leave this earth. To be working, together with my husband, to help Australia see the value of cannabis and to get it to cancer patients - that’s another goal. It’s helped me so much. And I’d like to spend more time with my family and my friends, and with my husband, who is the most incredible partner I could have imagined. I’ve worked my whole life. Since I was 15, I have pretty much been on the road and working, and it’s taken me 50 years to realise there’s more to life... you miss out on a lot - a lot of family things. So I’m enjoying more time off. I will still do projects that are fun and little things, but I’m not going out on the road any more and I doubt I’ll be recording...

I have no ambitions left. I’ve had the icing on the cake and the candles on top and the icing on top of that, and more candles and hundreds and thousands on top of that. I’ve had the most wonderful career and the most wonderful life.