Grease
Translation from German
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN “I fought and I won”
Today, Olivia Newton-John (47) can laugh again. She has her life completely under control. A life full of disappointments! When she was ten years old, her parents divorced.
Olivia: “Since then, I’ve been terrified of marriage.” Two engagements failed because of this fear—until she said “I do” to pop singer Matt Lattanzi (37) in 1985. Eleven months later, their daughter Chloe was born. To be able to devote more time to her family, Olivia left the film industry and became a successful businesswoman with several children’s boutiques.
Then, in 1991, it all came crashing down. The successful singer, who had sold more than 50 million records, was bankrupt. “The economic downturn at the time was to blame,” she says today.
But then came an even harder blow. Just a year later, a routine cancer screening revealed she had breast cancer. Where other women’s worlds would collapse, Olivia’s fighting spirit was ignited.
“I will face this blow of fate,” she declared publicly. Then came the surgery. The doctors removed her right breast. But the cancer was still in her body. For months, she underwent chemotherapy—successfully! “I fought and beat cancer,” she exclaimed afterward.
And then—after ten years of marriage—she left Matt Lattanzi (37). “The illness changed my wife too much,” was his explanation. The divorce followed. Olivia coped with that, too.
Her motto: “You must never lose faith in yourself.”
SAT.1 Saturday, January 11th, 7:00 PM “Grease”