Rich, beautiful and eligible
Rich, beautiful and eligible is a combination most girls would envy. But you don’t get that way, or stay that way, by being soft - as these interviews with six stars show
Every three months or so, there’s talk about Olivia Newton-John’s impending marriage. The star of Grease sat out the recent spate of rumours in a hospital bed, recuperating from a bout of hepatitis. “Don’t worry, it was benign,” she says. “I didn’t go yellow or anything.” But she does worry about the marriage talk: “I don’t know where it all starts,” she groans, “and it usually gets back to my mother in Australia.”
At 30, beautiful and undeniably rich (her percentage from the film Grease alone is more than £4,500,000 so far), Olivia is obviously a good catch. “I am eligible,” she admits. “At least, technically,” she adds. Ever since Liv, as her friends call her, left England for America six years ago, the man in her life has been Lee Kramer, who is also her manager. During that time, they have had fights and even separations, including one three-month period when they broke off their management contract. And in her off-periods with Lee, Olivia has gone out with other men. But none has ever amounted to a serious romance.
Today, Lee and Olivia are together again in her five-acre ranch in a Malibu canyon in California. “We are very happy at the moment,” she says. “But we’re not any closer to marriage. This summer slowed down by her illness, Olivia read film scripts and considered her future after losing the film Discoland, which she had planned to do for Grease producer Allan Carr. “I’ve just thrown her off my next 12 million dollar picture because of her excessive demands,” Carr fumed. “Her demands now are what Barbra Streisand’s were after Funny Girl, and she ain’t no Streisand.”
Olivia is far more comfortable talking about the seven horses she keeps, than discussing the hard facts of a superstar’s life. And, one day, she dreams of being self-sufficient on her ranch. “Self-sufficient and single” could we11 be her motto. “But I don’t really think of myself as available,” she points out. “What Lee and I have is a commitment.”