I've found love again
Olivia Newton-John is positively glowing. After years of anguish and torment after the breakup of her 10-year marriage to Matt Lattanzi and being hit with the devastating news of her breast cancer, she is opening her heart about learning to love again.
Olivia is about to release an extraordinarily personal album revealing all about her pain and heartache and announcing to the world that her life has changed. ‘The new album has been a deeply personal experience for me,’ Olivia says. ‘It’s a very positive album about coming out the other side. I used to be nervous about everything, but now I get excited instead. It’s a better way of channelling the energy.’
Olivia has such a new zest for life, the internationally acclaimed recording star has return to the studio after months spent in Nashville working with some of the biggest names in American country music, turning her intensely personal feelings and experiences of the past few years into music.
Although she had decided she would never perform again and admits she felt too nervous to sing live on stage, her appearance on U.S. television with the group All-4-One, and then the series of concerts she did earlier this year in Australia with Cliff Richard, changed all that.
With the release in May of the album Back With A Heart, there is an excited buzz around the U.S. music scene predicting Olivia is set for another major hit. It was revealed earlier this year that one of’ the biggest stars on the U.S. country music scene, Vince Gill, had stolen Olivia’s heart after he appeared with her on stage in Nashville and the two sang a sexy version of You’re The One That I Want, from Olivia’s hit movie Grease.
At the same time, John Travolta, who co-starred opposite Olivia in Grease, admits he had an affair with her and asked her to marry him.
And Sir Cliff Richard, getting Olivia to appear in concert again after a break of 10 years, says, ‘I don’t think there’s any male who could meet Olivia without falling in love with her. And I’m at the head of the queue.’
Friends of Olivia’s insist she is more content now than she has ever been. But she is uncomfortable talking about her emotions, preferring to let her songs reveal what is in her heart.
‘I think it’s good to leave people guessing,’ she says. “It helps if you have experienced things yourself when you are writing songs, but sometimes I write about other people. I wrote a song called Changes many years ago and it was all about going through a divorce. One of my friends was doing just that at the time and she recognised the song was about her. Fortunately, she was very touched and didn’t mind.”
“Yes, some of the stuff is real. hut I did co-write all the songs on this album, so there are lots of other people’s experiences in there, too. And I’m not telling you which hits are about me.’
Two songs from Back With A Heart are being released simultaneously. Olivia’s number one hit from 20 years ago, I Honestly Love You, is one of them, along with a new song she has co-written called Precious Love which is all about a woman learning to trust a man again after years of heartache.
While Olivia is immensely positive about her fightback following a partial mastectomy, the news that Paul McCartney’s wife Linda had lost her battle with breast cancer brought many emotions flooding back for her and made her realise how lucky she has been.
‘I wish I had known Linda. I’m very saddened for her family” Olivia says quietly. ‘Several people had said to me over the years that we should get together. But that’s the sad thing when someone dies you have missed the opportunity. I heard she was ill years ago, but didn’t hear any more, so her death was very shocking news.’
Dealing with her own problems caused Olivia to withdraw into herself. She has remained an intensely private person, fiercely protected by family and friends, preferring to live quietly with her 12-year-old daughter Chloe at their Malibu home.
But the release of the new album and, to coincide with her return to the charts, a big-budget video filmed on location at the Point Vincente Lighthouse with a crew of more than 60 is changing all that.
‘We filmed some of it on a Coast Guard boat with me standing on the bow my tribute to Titanic,’ Olivia quips.
Part of the video also features Olivia on top of a lighthouse with hunky model Anthony Cummings as her love interest.
‘It was scary as I’m afraid of heights, and it was very windy,’ she says.
It wasn’t the only moment of terror. A planned picnic shoot set on a rug in front of the lighthouse ended in panic when a large snake which definitely wasn’t in the script slithered out from under the blanket. No wonder Anthony is getting such a warm smile from Olivia in our pictures he’d deftly dispensed with the snake and saved the day!
It was a family affair on the shoot, with Olivia’s sister Rona looking after wardrobe, and mum Irene supplying Olivia’s antique jewellery.
‘It’s great working with Olivia,’ Rona says. ‘We always have fun together.’
As for the opinion of Olivia’s most discerning critic daughter Chloe the word is Olivia has a hit on her hands.
‘If Chloe didn’t like something, then I’d be worried,’ Olivia says. ‘Fortunately, she likes this album, so that’s wonderful.’
By Victoria Ross and Bill Ayres. Pictures: Michelle Day