Olivia's Sanctuary In Paradise
By Fiona McIntosh
Matt Lattanzi wriggles his toes in the warm sand, waiting for his call to the set of the new Aussie soap “Paradise Beach.” As the suntanned, ultra-fit husband of Olivia Newton-John looks on, the “action” unfolds. “Whaddya doing tonight then, Tori?” asks a boy in purple shorts. “Whaddya reckon,” says a bikini-clad girl, putting her hands on her hips and giving a meaningful look.
Hollywood actor Matt, 34, looks singularly uninspired. He is not in “Paradise Beach” - a sort of “Neighbours” meets “Baywatch” - for the sake of his career. Accepting the lead role of ace photo-journalist Cooper Hart meant he could bring cancer victim Olivia home to Australia and provide their seven year old daughter Chloe with a safe, healthy place to grow up.
The soap is being filmed on Australia’s Gold Coast, a coastal strip over-run by girls with cafe au lait, suntans and old men on banana loungers. It is the perfect, peaceful sanctuary for Olivia to grow strong after seven months of chemotherapy and a partial mastectomy to remove a cancerous growth.
“Livvy has finished with all her treatment now,” says Matt. “I wish I knew what she was made of because she is so powerful, so optimistic, so strong. She has the sort of power that could see her through anything.” Matt says Olivia’s chemotherapy treatment was relatively light. There were days when she felt rotten with nausea and depression, but most of the time she was cheerful. She even kept her long, blonde hair.
“She’s so optimistic that I can only be optimistic too,” says Matt. “I can’t tell you how much this has weighed on me. I’ve had my moments of weakness. I feared for her in my heart. I got depressed for her. Until something like this happens to you, you don’t know how low you can go. You don’t know how scared you can get. At first you ask yourself “why her?” But you have to look at how you can benefit from it. With cancer, a lot of it has to do with your attitude and outlook for the future. Livvy and I have built a strong foundation together over the past 12 years. This was a large earthquake, but it didn’t shake us.”
When Olivia’s doctor broke the news of her biopsy results to Matt, he froze. I just said, “You’re kidding.” I stood there dumbfounded while a cold chill went through me. “Then I knew that I had to tell Livvy. We were taking a break at a beautiful, isolated place near the Canadian border. I waited until we were back home before I told her. She said okay let’s deal with it. She was amazing.”
Olivia’s illness was the beginning of what the Grease and Xanadu star now describes as “the worst year of my life.” Days before her cancer was diagnosed, her father Professor Brinley Newton-John died suddenly. Olivia’s clothes company Koala Blue had collapsed and her best friend’s young daughter died of cancer after a year of painful treatment.
“But I’m doing well now,” a pink-cheeked Olivia told an Australian TV host last month. She said she had confronted death “but deep down I knew I’d be all right. I prayed to everything to every spiritual thing I’ve come across. I just want everyone to know I am fine.” Since then they’ve moved out of Los Angeles, sold Matt’s construction business and set up camp in a small farmhouse on an avocado farm at Ballina in northern New South Wales.
Here they lead a back to nature existence full of organic vegetables, sunshine and transcendental meditation. “We keep chickens and Livvy likes to paint while I’m working,” says Matt. “It’s an absolute relief after Los Angeles. Livvy and I meditate by ourselves every day, and this has certainly helped us get through her illness. We have even studied the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying together. I think about death all the time, not morbidly but because it could happen tomorrow.”
Matt dropped out of the Hollywood film scene four years ago to start his building firm that specialised in environment-friendly houses. Ever since he starred in Xanadu, he had become disillusioned with the disco-boy roles he was offered.
He “needed” to work with his hands. “I never enjoyed the roles I did in my 20s. Never. It was all take your clothes off, show your arse and do that love scene. Sure Paradise Beach is about beautiful bodies but it’s tame by comparison.”
Daughter Chloe attends a girl’s school on the Gold Coast. She also shares her parent’s love of all things good, kind and New Age. As a treat Matt and Olivia take her to the local seafood store and buy a live sea yabble with snapping claws. Not to eat but to set free.
“It’s a good, healthy environment for my girls to be in,” says Matt. “Olivia is very, very happy here and Chloe adapts to anything. It is important for my baby to be wordly and know how to deal with lots of people. I have a feeling that Chloe is going to be good for this planet. She already has a passion for rainforests.”
Chloe wasn’t told about Olivia’s cancer but Matt says she knows deep down something is wrong. “She knew her Mum was sick, but she intentionally stayed away from the subject. She knew we would tell her if she needed to know. And I suppose one day we will.”
Now instead of planning ahead, the Lattanzi family has vowed to live for the moment. “Selling everything in Los Angeles is part of a commitment Livvy and I have not to get too attached to our possessions,” says Matt. “The only thing you can take with you when you die is the love you have for your family and friends. Everything else is just baggage.”
When Olivia is strong enough, she and Matt plan to make a movie together probably in Australia. Olivia will also release the album of new songs she was working on before she became ill. “Livvy has some really beautiful songs - the calibre of Sam and I Honestly Love You,” says Matt.
“But apart from that I can’t say what we will be doing in the future. Who can tell? Nothing that happens in soap operas matches what we have to go through in our real lives.”