Love For The World
90s
By J A Olivarmarit Larson
Olivia Newton-John's interest in ecology came after the birth of her daughter Chloe in 1986 I wanted die world to be a better place for when she grows up.
she says. As United Nations goodwill ambassador for the environment, she and her husband Matt even went on a trip to the Amazon in Brazil. And now they are thinking of moving house to be even closer to nature than they are at their ranches m Australia and Malibu — where Olivia has had her main home for 17 years.
Her illness — breast cancer — his led Olivia to refocus her life. The environment remains a passionate issue to her, but her career has become secondary to her more recent concerns: getting strong and spending more time with Chloe and Matt.
In the second part of our exclusive interview, Olivia looks back on the past and tells us why it is time to live and enjoy what she's worked for
When are are going to return to your career?
I don't know. I don't know if I will I'm going to have some fun for a while. I've been working my whole life since I was 15. When I travelled, it was because I was working. Now I 'd like to travel for the sake of travelling and enjoy the benefits of the work I've put in all these years until I decide what I want to do now. I want to spend some time with my daughter, to show her things.
How long have you been living on your ranch in Malibu?
Some 17 years now
Is it true you want to move?
Yes we want to live even closer to nature. I like to visit cities but I wouldn't want to live in one. We just want to get further away from cities, but I can't say where.
You have a ranch in Australia too?
Yes. I try to go there once a year
Do you enjoy being famous?
I don't know anything else so I've never really thought about it. Fame has been really wonderful for me I’ve had a wonderful life and people have always treated me well. I'd say 99 per cent of the time fame is great — it’s only that one per cent, that lack of privacy, that isn't so great. Some people feel they have a right to invade your privacy. The hardest part is when you're bringing up a child: you want her to be a regular child and fit in with the rest of her friends. But she has a famous mother and that really changes things for her Luckily, I'm a down-to-earth person with my feet on the ground.
Is your daughter more like Matt or you?
In appearance, she's very like my husband and I think she has also inherited his zest for life although I'm pretty energetic too, so I suppose she gets that from both of us. She has a very good ear for languages and has inherited an ability to act. I think, from both of us. She also has a very good heart — I hope that she got that from both of us, too. She loves to sing and dance but she doesn't want to be an actress when she grows up. She wants to work in the rainforest and take care of animals.
When did you meet you husband?
I met him on the set of Xanadu. I remember the day and where it was, I was at a dance rehearsal studio — Matt was a dancer then. We didn't have a leading man. but I had to learn of lot of dance routines before the movie started. So they brought him in to rehearse with me
Would you say that it was love at first sight?
The attraction was instant but he was younger than me and I said to myself He's gorgeous and lovely but we'll just be friends.
We were just friends for a long time.
Was the age difference a problem?
When we first met, it was for me. He didn’t have a problem at all — and now I don't either. When we met, years ago, older women with younger men was kind of new. Now most women I know have younger boyfriends. But I had a hang-up about it then. I suppose it was something left off from my childhood — that I should be with an older man.
What attracted you to him?
His vitality. He's nearly always up, happy, vibrant and positive.
What do you admire most in people?
Integrity and honesty. A sense of humour is also very important to me as well as a sense of loyalty.
What disappoints you most?
People who are rude, cruel and who don't have any thought or feelings for others. I also can't accept cruelty to animals or insensitivity to the planet.
You worry a lot about the planet.
Human beings are ruining the planet. Unless we stop polluting it and killing off species there won't be a planet for us for very much longer. Human beings feel they have the right to kill things — to destroy whatever they want. Nature lives in harmony with itself and only kills what it needs to eat. Nature isn't necessarily kind, animals kill other animals but they don't kill whole species. We are a very aggressive animal and we have done a lot of damage. We are ruining this earth and we must change our ways.
Do you think it’s too late to save the planet?
I hope it isn't. But unless man snaps out of this self-delusion that we are not doing any harm, it will be too late. Overpopulation is out biggest problem but nobody addresses it because it touches on religion and politics. We're breeding like rabbits on this planet. We don't have the resources to provide everyone. We don't have enough food and water for everyone. Obviously the more people there are, the more resources we will require. The planet's oceans are being totally fished out, too many forests are being cleared: they have second growth but the old growth Will never be replaced. Animal species arc being wiped out every day. And the air is polluted. I always think that human beings living in cities are like rats living in a cage. If you put too many rats in a cage, they'll start fighting with one another and that's what's happening in the cities: fighting and killing and wanting what other people have. It’s a major problem. Overpopulation is something that just has to be dealt with.
Do you think pollution is one of the factors responsible in emitting cancer?
Definitely. My friend Nancy — the mother of Colette who died from cancer a year-and-a-half ago — and I, have started a foundation in Collette' name. We have just donated money to a university to study the effects of pollution in relation to cancer in children. The hospitals are seeing a definite increase in child cancer as pollution gets worse especially through pesticides in our food and contamination in our water. We're doing studies on it right now so I hope that there will be answers to our questions early in the new year. I think pollution is a big contributor to cancer.
Do you ever feel you're fighting a losing battle?
Oh, no. There are a lot of people fighting and I will never give up trying to help because the world is a beautiful place and we're lucky to have this beautiful planet.
What is your driving force in life?
That's a good question I don't know really. During the last few years it has probably been my job, what I did and what was expected of me. Since I had my little girl I began to get more into the environment and into caring about the planet and the world we live in.
Where have you drawn strength in your moments of difficulty?
From family and friends. However, at the end of the day, it all comes back to the individual because basically we're all alone. People can support you and tel1 you it's all going to be all right, but you have to know it in your own heart. You have got to feel strong and know you'll be okay and that you'll get through it. But I'm getting a lot of support from family and friends so that gives me the strength to know I’ll be fine.
What sort of things make you nervous?
Violence makes me nervous. I don’t like violence, whether it’s on the television or in the real world. Loud and aggressive people make me nervous. It also makes me very upset to open the papers and see children starving when most people in this country waste most of their food. There's plenty in the world to go around, but there's terrible injustice. Children in Rumania and all these countries have no parents but the governments won’t allow them to be taken out and given homes in other countries. There's so much illogical thinking.
What do you fear most in life?
I feel an underlying violence in the planet, an unrest from people, and that scares me. All the things I've been talking about - the destruction of the planet, the wiping out of species - these things scare me. There are a lot of things to be afraid of now.
Are you ultimately optimistic about such things?
I think the truth of it is that the planet will survive. It’s the human species that won't survive if we don't change our ways pretty quickly. A million years is nothing to the planet. It’s been around for millions of years so it will just regenerate itself. But it’s us humans who are in danger of wiping ourselves out, I'm not fearful for myself I'm fearful for my child and all the other children coming after us, fearful of what we're leaving behind.
Do you believe in destiny?
I think some kind of destiny exists, but you can change the course of it by making the right decisions. There's some kind of plan but I don't know what it is.
Do you regret anything in life?
Yes but it’s important to have regrets too because you learn from those things. You don't want to do them again so you have to do them once. But it's important also to let those regrets go. There are a couple of things I regret but I have let go of them now.
Why have you decided to totally put sour career on hold?
Because I don't feel like working at the moment. I think the pressure of my career was very stressful. I was trying to do so many things: I was working for the environment, I had a career, was running a business and I’m a mother too. It was all too much so I have to pull back from everything and just dea1 with getting strong and getting through my treatments and finishing everything and then I'll work out what I want to do. But I don't want to get back into that stress situation.
What gives you your passion for life?
I love life and I have a wonderful, beautiful child. She gives me motivation to do lots of things. That's why I got involved in the environment, because I wanted it to be a better place when she grows up. But in doing so many things, I wore myself out, so now I have to spend more time just being at home and taking care of her and her alone. Just being with my daughter and husband all the time over these last few months has been like a wonderful reward for me.
CORRECTION
We would like to point out that Olivia Newton-John's father died of liver cancer, and Colette - daughter of Ms Newton-John's best friend Nancy - died a year and a half ago. These two facts were incorrectly reported in last week's issue. We apologise for any upset we may have caused.