Olivia's Christmas Movie
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN will star in a poignant American Christmas telemovie, marking her first dramatic role since beating cancer. A spokeswoman for Olivia’s agent, Bill Sammeth, confirms that the singer - actress received a copy of the script of A Christmas Romance while in France at a TV festival to help promote her new environmental series, Wild Life, which will be seen on the Nine Network next year.
She is in final negotiations to fly to Vancouver for the four-week shoot, beginning October 20, for the American television network CBS. A CBS casting spokesperson, Shana Lansburg, also confirms that Olivia’s eight-year-old daughter, Chloe, is likely to play one of the character’s two children, which would mark Chloe’s acting debut (apart from a brief cameo in Paradise Beach with her father, Matt Lattanzi).
“It’s a great role for Olivia and it’s been suggested Chloe play the obvious role of her daughter,” Shana says. A Christmas Romance, expected to screen in the U.S. and Australia this Christmas, will feature 45-year-old Olivia as widowed mother Julia, struggling to make ends meet during a bleak Christmas season. Determined to shield her two young daughters from their harsh economic situation, she is nevertheless forced to confront her predicament when her nemesis, in the form of banker Greg (to be played by Gregory Harrison, of Trapper John, M.D.), is stranded by a Christmas storm at their house.
Olivia, who talked to TV WEEK recently about her life-and-death battle with breast cancer, has decided to sell her two Malibu homes and make a permanent move to Australia. She recently became an Australian citizen and plans to live with her family. Before returning to Australia, she will spend a month in Canada, accompanied by Matt and Chloe.
In 1990, Olivia broke her seven-year absence from acting with another Christmas telemovie, A Mom For Christmas, in which Chloe was featured in the background. Olivia played a store mannequin that comes to life when a little girl wishes for a mother for Christmas.