I love Olivia says Cliff
By Lydia Slater
It is one of the great mysteries of modern showbiz: were Cliff and Olivia more than just good friends? Twenty years after the Peter Pan of pop denied he had proposed to the Milkshake Kid, the wholesome twosome are together again. So what is the truth about their relationship? Sir Cliff Richard, his shirt unbuttoned to the navel, is sitting, apparently mesmerised and staring with his big, dark eyes into Olivia Newton- John’s baby blues. “Livvy and I are always trying to find a way to have some physical contact,” he says huskily. “I enjoy that. We meet, we clasp, but we don’t kiss; there’s all this going on, but no one knows quite what. I feel it’s magical.” “Mmmm,” Olivia agrees. “There’s a trust when you feel safe with someone. You can be more daring.”
Suddenly, Cliff hurls himself across the sofa and clasps Olivia in his arms. “I don’t think there’s any male who could meet Olivia without falling in love with her,” he declares passionately. “And I’m at the head of the queue.” Ever since Cliff, 55, decided that he was the ideal candidate to play horrible Heathcliff, his fans have been wondering if a mid-life crisis has struck. He has acquired stubble, long hair and a practised snarl. His slender, boyish frame has been mercilessly trained and now has the bulging muscles that are clasping Olivia so firmly. In fact, he appears to have regressed into a kind of latter-day rebellious adolescent.
However, appearances can be deceptive Cliff’s shirt is unbuttoned, but he is wearing a high-necked T- adore shirt underneath. The steam swirling around the room comes from his humidifier rather than his libido, which also explains the husky voice. The (purely fraternal) hug is over as swiftly as it began. And the repressed passions that he and Olivia are discussing? They relate only to their performance as Cathy and Heathcliff on a video they have filmed for their duet from the Heathcliff album.
“Olivia was my first choice when it came to finding Cathy,” Cliff says. “There are plenty of great women singers I could have asked. But I knew Olivia could eat these songs and spit them out. And we sound and look good together. I mean, I’m obviously the bloke and she’s the girl.” He speaks with such feeling you can’t help wondering whether this has been a problem in the past. If so, he has chosen wisely. For if there was ever a woman who could make Cliff look craggy, it has to be that living doll Olivia.
Whatever vitamins she takes, you want what she is having. At 47, her voice is as soft, her curls as blonde, her eyes as blue and her forehead almost as line-free as in her Sandra Dee days. And her outfit a T-shirt with little white hearts on it, matching long skirt and big clumpy boots is positively teenage. It is extremely hard to believe that the Richard/Newton-John partnership was formed more than a quarter of a century ago. They first met, they think, at a party, but they can’t remember whose. They were immediately drawn to one another. “There are some people you meet that you like immediately. We clicked, and the relationship grew from there,” Cliff says. Olivia admired the British Elvis for his professionalism “the way he used the stage”. And Cliff’s first impression? “I thought she was gorgeous.”
So when Peter Gormley, who coincidentally managed both of them, suggested that Olivia should do a guest appearance on The Cliff Richard Show, its star leaped at the chance. He says: “I said, Great, she’s a friend, she looks good.” In fact, Olivia looked so good that she stayed eight weeks instead of the one night that had originally been planned. “Cliff gave me my big break,” she says gratefully. She toured with him for two years from 1973 and, despite the intensity of a 24-hour professional relationship, both claim they never quarrelled.
Don’t forget we weren’t married or involved,” Cliff says. But rumors that Cliff was interested became unstoppable. In 1974 he even went to the lengths of issuing an official denial that he had proposed to Olivia. “The first time I met Olivia she was free,” Cliff says. “But very, very soon she wasn’t. Our relationship is special, but it’s never been a romantic one. I never proposed to Livvy and we never went on a date. When we went out, we always went as a team. We never got into the dating mode, and we might never have, I don’t know…”
At first sight, they appear to have a lot in common. They both seem stuck in a Fifties teenage time warp. But do they really behave like this in private? Cliff, you feel, probably does. “Look, I’m not perfect,” he adds, “but I like being nice.” Olivia, you feel, has chosen to hide her real personality behind this sugar- coated shell. She is obviously a stronger woman than she likes to appear. After all, she has survived three miscarriages, breast cancer and the break-up last year of her 12-year marriage to Matt Lattanzi. Her real feelings are surely too raw to be on display.