Olivia's Empire
By Ivor Davis
CAUTION Children at Play, says a discreet sign as the electric gates swing open and you enter the private, picture-book domain of Olivia Newton-John. Only a line of security video cameras give any clue to the realities of celebrity life that occasionally intrude even in paradise.
Curled up in front of a bank of family snapshots is Olivia, her hair is long, and she seems a good decade younger than her 42 years. In Australian lamb’s wool booties, mustard leggings and a matching hooded sweater, she looks more like the au pair than a one-woman business empire. Yet it is from this sunny California enclave that Olivia singer, actress, mother and mini-mogul runs the Blue Koala fashion business which she started with partner pal Pat Farrar in one tiny shop in Hollywood back in 1983.
It has now grown to almost 60 stores across the world. Next year you will be able to buy her stuff in Harrods. “I think of myself as first a mum,” says Olivia. “My daughter Chloe set all my priorities straight for me and I’ll put her and my husband Matt before my career. I don’t have a false image of who or what I am. I’m just a person who’s trying to do as much good as I can and enjoy my life and raise a healthy kid.”
British-born, Aussie-reared Olivia is always trying something new: she’s making her American TV debut in an old fashioned Christmas story and on the business front she’s about to expand her Koala Blue interests in a big way. She admits her TV film A Mom For Christmas is lightweight, sentimental holiday fare. “It has Cinderella and Mary Poppins overtones to it,” she says.
Olivia is keen to do her bit to save the planet. She was recently appointed a special ambassador for the environment to the United Nations. She says: “I’m not an expert but I feel I have access to the media and if I say ‘recycle’, or ‘plant a tree’ someone may hear. I did a children’s video recently for the Hanna Barbera cartoon company. I agreed to do it only if they would let me put an environmental message on each tape and if they’d make sure it was packaged in recyclable paper. And they agreed. That made me feel really good and I got paid for it as well.”
Somehow she manages to keep track of all her activities and still keep relatively sane. She says: “I don’t know how I have time for it all. They do say if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.”
Her plans for the Koala Blue company include putting her label on everything from fake fur coats (“I feel good about that, we don’t need to kill animals to wear their fur”) to cosmetics, swimwear, glasses and children’s clothing. And in the new year she will do battle with stars like Elizabeth Taylor, Cher, Joan Collins and Sophia Loren. Olivia plans to be the latest celebrity to join the star-studded Perfume Wars with a line of her own. Eau de Koala? Sheila’s Scent? Pommie Ponger? We trust not. And it goes without saying that it won’t be tested on animals.