She Was Here, Olivia Spent unannounced two days at area resort
Linda Moore didn’t quite know what to think when Olivia Newton-John walked up to the reception desk at the Inn of the Seventh Mountain and asked her for a room.
“It wasn’t really spectacular,” recalled Moore. “It was exciting. It was funny.”
Moore recognized the famous Australian entertainer as soon as she started toward the Inn’s door. After all, Newton-John has had a bundle of hit records, and her starring role in Grease opposite John Travolta put her face in front of millions of movie fans across the United States.
But there was no entourage, no security guards, no advance reservations and alas no reporters. Just Olivia Newton-John and her friend, Matt Lattanzi of Portland, checking in like any middle-class tourists. Well, almost any.
“She gave me her credit card and it had her name on it,” said Moore. “I just looked at her and she put her finger to her lips Shhhh.”
That was Thursday, Sept. 4. and her friend, also an entertainer, had a quiet dinner and drink that night in Josiah’s Restaurant and Lounge. But by Friday, the Inn was being bombarded with telephone calls asking if the rumor was true.
No, was the answer. It was a masterpiece of deception that-would have made a CIA agent envious.
“She was on vacation and we wanted to give her the maximum privacy she could get,” said Fabianne Head, executive secretary at the Inn.
And that’s what happened. Celebrity and friend spent a quiet two days behaving “just like they were regular people at the Inn,” said Jodee Carlson, a recreation supervisor.
That appeared to be just what Newton-John needed, said Carlson. She took the couple, along with other tourists, on a motorbike tour to Shevlin Park Friday afternoon after they had gone rafting in the morning.
“She was really quiet and shy.” said Carlson. “She just looked really weary and worldly from traveling. She just looked really tired.”
If Newton-John wanted to get away from it all in style, the Inn of the Seventh Mountain in September isn’t a bad choice. Summer’s crunch is over, and snow hasn’t drawn the ski hordes yet. ..
“We’re slow right now, so there weren’t a lot of people around,” Carlson said.
Many of the ones who were there didn’t recognize the star. Newton-John didn’t do anything to help them out.
“She didn’t dress up, she didn’t do her hair, she didn’t do makeup, she didn’t do anything.” said Carlson. “She was just real casual walking in and out of places.”
When the entertainer introduced herself along with other guests who went on the rafting and motorbike trips, she just said “my name is Olivia.”
But with those who did recognize her and ask to take photographs, “she was nice about it,” Carlson said.
“She was really friendly. It was really impressive for her to come back and shake our hands and remember our names.”
The couple came to the Inn because Lattanzi had been to Bend before and knew about the resort. Apparently the relaxed secrecy suited them. Newton-John also told Carlson she hopes to come back this winter, perhaps to ski.
If she does, she won’t be able to retrieve the T-shirt she mistakenly left in her room. That was auctioned off at the dinner-dance featuring famed bandleader Count Basie which was held at the Inn on Saturday, Sept. 6, the day she left. Bond general contractor Hap Taylor bought it for $110. The money, along with the rest of the evening’s proceeds, will go to benefit Central Oregon Community College.
The entertainer isn’t the first celebrity the Inn has known. John Davidson, a singer and talk-show host, visited there in December 1978.
But Olivia Newton-John may be the first to make back-to-back vacation stops. If she is, don’t expect to call the Inn and find out if she’s on the guest list, when a star puts her finger to her lips, they know what the cue means there.
By Steve Boyer, Bulletin Staff Writer