How I learned to live again
She's a superstar all over again - after going through years of hell, out Livvy is bouncing back big time!
Twenty years may have passed since Olivia Newton-John starred opposite John Travolta in the hit musical Grease. But to her latest crop of adoring fans, it is as if time has stood still. ‘You’re Sandy!” they cry the moment they spy Olivia in real life.
“It’s like they can’t believe their eyes when they see me,” she says, laughing and shaking her head. With Grease mania sweeping the world all over again since the movie’s re-release, it’s not so surprising that the Australian songstress is a superstar again. But that Olivia is nearly 50 and still instantly recognisable as the high school heroine little girls love to mimic is something else.
How has she managed to stay so young-looking? “Have you had a facelift?” we ask. “No, not yet,” says Olivia, smiling equably. She wears drawstring trousers and a girlish little striped vest. She’s fine-boned and slim, and has a newish sleek haircut. Her dainty feet are bare but for crimson nail varnish.
The only time she becomes remotely rattled is when you accuse her of being so commendably and persistently pleasant that she’s almost elevated herself to sainthood.
“I don’t see anything wrong in being nice,” she says, justifiably defensive. “Cliff (Richard) and I are always saying the same thing: ‘What do people want? Blood?’ I’m a nice person and proud of it. I don’t see a good image as a problem. Maybe it’s more interesting to be naughty, but I’m a nice person and I’m happy with that.”
In the debauched world of rock’n’roll, Olivia Newton-John was ever a beacon of moral probity. She did not take drugs, was not promiscuous and hoped for a happy-ever-after marriage.
Career-wise she has been hugely successful. In the ’70s, she was showered with music awards, and twice voted Top British Female Vocalist of the Year, and she has sold 60 million records worldwide. And, of course, there is Grease.
Olivia acquired wealth and a house in the fashionably reclusive Malibu Hills outside LA. She was married at 36, to aspiring actor Matt Lattanzi, a man 11 years her junior with Latin good looks. A longed-for daughter, Chloe, arrived a year or so later: it seemed that life had blessed Olivia inordinately.
However, tragedies in remorseless succession were looming. The assault, when it began, was both pitiless and overwhelming. First, Olivia’s god- daughter and Chloe’s best friend, five- year-old Colette Chuda, died of cancer.
Then, in the summer of 1992, Olivia’s beloved father died from the same cruel disease and, just a day after this, she learned that she also had cancer. There was a malignant tumour in her breast. She had a partial mastectomy, chemotherapy and reconstructive surgery, but it seemed that her convalescence was barely over when her marriage foundered.
Matt had formed a “friendship” with 23-year-old student Cindy Jessup (they now share a home). Olivia fought to shore up the crumbling facade of her marriage, but divorce inevitably ensued. All that she had so fervently hoped for an enduring, lifelong partnership, stability for their child seemed destroyed.
“They say that divorce, bereavement, illness and moving house are the most traumatic things to deal with in life, and I faced them all in three years,” says Olivia. “The cancer and bereavement were devastating, but probably the hardest of all to face was divorce. I waited until very late to get married because I didn’t want to make a mistake.”
“My parents were divorced when I was 10 and it was the thing I most wanted not to do. I think that was why it was so desolating when it happened to me. Divorce, to me, is like a death the death of a relationship. You work so hard at staying together then, when it crumbles, you feel as if you have a sign on your forehead saying ‘failure’. Anger and pain are inevitable.” Olivia says she and Matt remain amicable because of Chloe. “He lives in California, and when I work, he takes care of Chloe and that’s good.
“Slowly I have rebuilt my life. I went to a therapist, although it was not something I’d ever contemplated before. The way I was brought up in Australia and England, people thought you had to be really mentally sick to go into therapy, but I have learned from living here that there is a different attitude. If you have a broken tooth, you go to the dentist. If you have emotional problems, you see a therapist. It has helped me.”
“I don’t feel I have failed, now. I feel fine. I’m fit and healthy. I’ve passed the critical five-year point with the cancer, and now I only need yearly checks. Life is wonderful and I am enjoying the freedom of being single. When you have a child you never feel alone. Chloe is a great companion.” Olivia Newton- John isn’t just a sugar-coated sweetie; underneath there is a husk of determination and strength.
This month she released a new album, a country-pop mix called Back With A Heart. There is a personal reason behind her comeback, too.
“At Christmas last year, I had a very nasty throat problem,” she remembers. “The problem persisted and I started to get concerned. I did not even let myself think about cancer, but the worry was there. I kept thinking: ‘What is this trying to tell you? Is it because you have a voice and you haven’t been using it?’ “I went to the doctor, who said I might have to have surgery. I said that I didn’t want to have an operation so close to my vocal cords. It was then that I thought, ‘Oh God, I need to sing! ‘ I made the album and the throat problem just disappeared.”
Olivia moved to her beach house in Malibu after her cancer. The spot, overlooking Paradise Cove, is as peaceful as you can get in Los Angeles. All you can hear from her terrace is the gentle lapping of the sea. The view is heart-stopping, dolphins frisk in the ocean, parrots flock in the palms and great orange banks of nasturtiums blaze along the cliffs like wildfires.
We sit on the terrace to talk, Olivia reclining, her bare feet on the table. She does not seem to have a scintilla of pretension. She talks like any mum, pleasantly concerned about your affairs, solicitous for your well-being.
Then her features cloud over as she describes the awful chronology of her own misfortunes … “First there was Colette’s death, which was particularly traumatic for Chloe, because they were so very, very close like sisters. How do you talk to a five-year-old about the death of her best friend? I said Colette had gone to heaven to be with God. Chloe knew that Colette was sick, but I didn’t mention cancer. She coped, but I know thoughts of her friend are always with her. “I was half anticipating my father’s death. He had cancer of the liver. I spent a week with him in Australia when he was very ill. I told him I loved him very much, which was all I could do. “
“He was a proud, dignified man. We took our cues from him and, as he remained jovial and unemotional, that is how we tried to be. “I was with Matt and some friends when the news came that my father had died. We drank a toast to Dad and told stories about him. I did not have much time to grieve because a day later I had the news about my cancer.”
“I think the first couple of days, especially the first night, were the most frightening. I had a night of dread I shall never forget. Then I made a decision. I said to myself, You’re going to be okay’, and from that moment I fervently believed I would recover.”
“Really, I feel very lucky that the cancer was caught early and that it was not aggressive. I am fortunate, because I was all right and I felt very supported throughout the treatment.”
“Although I had chemotherapy, I didn’t lose my hair, which was a psychological bonus. I wore an ice cap a sort of tea-cosy filled with ice cubes which is supposed to help.” She got through a year’s treatment without even mentioning the word “cancer” to Chloe. “I just said I had a lump. Of course, she sensed there was something wrong, but at that age she was seven it is easy to distract a child.
“Then, after the treatment, we went to Australia to live for a while and there she heard that I’d had cancer. She came home from school crying. She said, ‘Mummy, Mummy, it isn’t true, is it?’ I said, ‘Yes, it is, but I did not tell you because I thought you would be scared I would die and I’m completely better now’. “Chloe was terribly upset. She said, ‘But, Mummy, why didn’t you tell me? I would have taken care of you’. It was so touching. But I really believe I made the right decision in not telling her at the time.”
At this, Olivia looks at her watch and jumps up. “Hang on here for five minutes. I have to fetch Chloe from school. I promised her I’d get her.” Minutes later, Chloe bounds in, her best friend in tow. Olivia makes lunch salad nicoise, cheese, rice cakes assembling the components on the benchtop, just like the perfect suburban mum.
She says she is enjoying her independence. Life is busy. As well as the singing and songwriting, there is the Grease revival. Does she still have those preposterously tight Spandex trousers? Yes, she does. Do they still fit? Well, that’s a tricky one, because the elasticity has gone they’re not that tight now, she says.
She also campaigns for a children’s charity set up by Nancy Chuda, which is seeking to establish a link between some childhood cancers and the environment. She is UN ambassador for the environment the calls on her time are innumerable.
Her lovely beach home is also environmentally benign. No ostentation, no flummery, no importance. A bit like Olivia herself, in fact.
By Frances Hardy