Olivia's Story

thanks to Kay

When Olivia Newton-John left her hectic Hollywood lifestyle for Australia after winning her battle against breast cancer, she was ready to retire. As she relaxed into a simple, stress-free lifestyle with husband Matt Lattanzi and their daughter Chloe at their avocado farm on the northern NSW coast, Olivia knew her life would never be the same again. "When I was going through surgery and chemotherapy, I thought, I'm going to retire, this is it, I am not going to work any more'," she says in a special television documentary. "I'm just going to be a lady of leisure and this is fantastic and I love it." "And then I came to Australia for six months while my husband was doing a television show, and I put my daughter into school and I was just here doing nothing." The peace and tranquillity allowed Olivia to reflect on her previously supercharged lifestyle and the toll it had taken on her health. "When I was not working and I was here on the farm for six months. when I was recovering from chemo-therapy, I realised how wonderful it was just to be doing one thing," she says. "Just to be a mum, just to be at home and just to...it was wonderful." As Olivia recovered, she thought about writing a book about her experience or making a videotape for women who had cancer. But eventually, she decided to tell her tale in song. "I started writing these songs in the middle of the night," she says. "One of them is called Don't Say Why Me? Why Me? Why Not Me?" Olivia's concern for the environment also was a major inspiration behind her new album, which has the working title Gaia (a native word meaning Mother Earth) and is due out in mid-April. Described as "very, very personal", the album gives an insight into some of the emotions driving Olivia during her battle against breast cancer, which began in mid-1992. It is a subject the superstar has been reluctant to widely discuss, but award-winning journalist Helen Vatsikopoulos was given a rare interview for a documentary on breast cancer. "I contacted Olivia's agent, but it wasn't until I wrote to Olivia personally that anything happened," says Walkley Award winner Helen, 33. "She said she would be happy to be involved." Helen spoke to Olivia at her home near Ballina for the documentary, called Agatha's Curse, which is scheduled to be screened on SBS on March 29. "We even heard some of the songs and they were very sweet-sounding and from the heart," Helen says. "She seemed to be writing about things that have changed her life. It is a very personal album." Helen's wide-ranging interview covers everything from Olivia's thoughts on her career and new-found peace on the farm to her suspicions that the cancer could have been stress-related. The diagnosis followed a string of personal tragedies. Her Koala Blue clothing empire ran into trouble, there was the death of her best friend's five-year-old daughter and, finally, the death of her father from cancer. Olivia plans to continue taking time for herself and focusing on positive thinking. She meditates at least once a day and believes she is, in many ways, stronger than ever. She says: "It's really amazing what you can go through and it makes you a much stronger human being."

By Pamela Lesmond