Le magazine australien WHO consacre sa couverture et quelques pages à OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN dans sa prochaine édition !!
FAREWELL OLIVIA
AS AUSTRALIANS AND FANS AROUND THE WORLD MOURN HER LOSS, WHO REMEMBERS AN ICON. WE HONESTLY LOVE YOU, ONJ...
- WHO
Heading into 2022, Dame Olivia NewtonJohn was upbeat and, as usual, thinking of others. Posting a message on her Instagram to her legion of fans, she urged everyone to come together and thanked them for their unwavering support. “I know it’s been a very, very, very difficult time for everybody on the whole planet – so this is a time we can get together, celebrate each other and our families. I want to thank you for all of your support over the years and I wish you all the best, and send you love and light.”
The light that radiated from the beloved singer and actress left the world on Monday, August 8, when Newton-John, aged 73, passed away peacefully at her ranch in Southern California surrounded by her family, including daughter Chloe Lattanzi and husband John Easterling, after a long battle with cancer.
Yet, her love lives on and was felt around the world as tributes flowed from superstars to everyday people who she had touched through her bravery and positivity, led by her 36-year-old daughter.
“I wish you all the best, and send you love and light”
NEWTON JOHN
“I worship this woman. My mother. My best friend,” she wrote just three days before her mum’s death.
ONJ was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, and it went into remission before returning in 2013. In May 2017, she was told the cancer had metastasised and spread to her bones. With the odds stacked against her, the star’s challenges never seemed to rob her of her eternal optimism. “Going through cancer, you learn you’re strong. Most people are not aware of the strength they have until they’re put to the test by something in their lives,” she told Parade magazine in January. “I’m one of those people.”
Having embraced every moment, she had no regrets throughout her life. “I’ve fulfilled all my dreams,” she told Reader’s Digest in March 2021. “Everything I’m doing now is icing on the cake.”
EARLY LIFE
Although Australia loves to claim her, Newton-John was born in Cambridge, England, the youngest of three children.
In 1954, her family migrated to Australia when her father was appointed the dean of the University of Melbourne’s Ormond College. Her mother, Irene, was the daughter of the Nobel prizewinning physicist, Max Born. As a child, the animal lover dreamed of becoming a vet or mounted policewoman, but she also loved music and was a gifted singer. As a teenager, she formed a short-lived, all-girl group, Sol Four, with three classmates.
As her confidence boosted, she became a regular on local Australian radio and television shows, including The Happy Show, where she performed as ‘Lovely Livvy’. Her big break came in April 1964 when she won the TV talent show Sing Sing Sing, scoring a trip to England as her prize. She left high school and honed her musical skills in London’s booming music scene.
Once there, she recorded her debut single, ‘Till You Say You’ll Be Mine’, and parlayed her popularity into her first acting role in the 1965 movie Funny Things Happen Down Under. Her follow-up role in the 1970 film Toomorrow was a major flop, but her music career hit its stride.
In 1971, she released her first solo album, If Not for You. In 1974, she represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Long Live Love’, coming in fourth (Abba won that year with ‘Waterloo’). After that, she moved to Los Angeles and began to cross over into country music.
GREASE IS THE WORD
Newton-John was at a dinner party thrown by singer Helen Reddy when she met the film producer, Allan Carr.
“I’ve fulfilled all my dreams. Everything I’m doing now is icing on the cake”
NEWTON JOHN
He immediately knew he had found his Sandy to star in his big-screen adaptation of the Broadway musical, Grease. “She was so funny, quite warm and oh-so beautiful. I told her immediately she was everything a movie star should he, and she’d be perfect for my movie,” Carr said in a 1978 interview with The New York Times. Newton-John wasn’t so sure. “I was very anxious about making another film, because my music career was going well,” she recalled to Vanity Fair in 2020. “And I did not want to mess it up by doing another movie that wasn’t good.”
It would turn out to be a career-defining role. Newton-John was nominated for the Best Actress Golden Globe award and received an Oscar nod for the soundtrack, which spent 12 weeks on the top of the
charts and spawned three top-five singles. In addition, she scored a lifelong friendship with co-star John Travolta.
“When you share that kind of meteoric success – and nothing has been able to exceed it – you share a bond,” Travolta told People magazine in 2018. Newton-John agrees, adding, “We did something lifechanging, making that film … I feel grateful to be a part of that and to have worked with him. We’ve stayed friends ever since.”
A NEW PHASE
Newton-John made another careerdefining splash with the 1981 single, ‘Physical’, accompanied by a provocative music video. “I called my manager and tried to get it pulled off the air because I thought I had gone too far,” she recalled to the Daily Mail in March 2021. “But he said, ‘It’s too late. It’s climbing up the charts.’” It would go on to become one of her biggest hits. “It was amazing because with all the controversy that went with it, there also came this opportunity, as is often the way, and I just had to embrace it,” she has said. “I was banned in Utah, which was very exciting. You haven’t made it until you’re banned, right?”
LOVE DRAMA
Newton-John was 31 when she met 20-year-old actor and dancer Matt Lattanzi on the set of the musical fantasy film Xanadu in 1979. They married in December 1984 and in January 1986, their only daughter, Chloe Rose, was born. They were married for almost a decade before amicably divorcing in 1995.
A year after her divorce, she met cameraman Patrick McDermott while filming a commercial. The pair dated for nine years, up until he mysteriously vanished while on a fishing trip near Los Angeles on June 30, 2005. Though no body has ever been found, initial indications suggested McDermott, who had a history of financial problems and owed child support for a son by a previous marriage, fell or jumped overboard. Subsequent media reports claimed to have found
“She was so funny, quite warm and oh so beautiful” CARR
several eyewitnesses who said they had seen someone resembling McDermott in the vicinity of the Mexican resort town of Cabo San Lucas, stirring unfounded speculation that McDermott had faked his own death to start a new life. “I’ve been through cancer and divorce. Nothing compares to this,” Newton-John told People in 2006, while noting that her ups and downs in life had taught her resilience. “Once you’ve been to the bottom and gotten back up, I think you realise there is always a way up from any bottom. And life doesn’t guarantee that you get only one bottom.”
FINDING PEACE, LOVE AND PURPOSE
Newton-John was friends with American businessman and environmentalist John Easterling for many years before things turned romantic during a trip to the Amazon in 2007. “Long story made short, we fell in love in the rainforest,” the singer spilled. A little over a year later, the couple were married in Peru by a shaman on a mountain in the Andes. “I feel so lucky to be with him. He has been a huge, wonderful influence in my life,” says Newton-John.
They then launched the Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund. The organisation’s mission is to support research for “kinder and more effective ways of preventing, treating and curing all cancers, including plant medicine and other therapies,” she told her followers in October 2020. “My dream is that we will realise a world beyond cancer.” It’s a mission the star had already been on for more than a decade, having created the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre in Melbourne in 2012. Beyond her contributions to entertainment, Newton-John knew her bravery in the face of her cancer journey would count as her most important legacy. “It gave me purpose and intention, and taught me a lot about compassion,” she told The Guardian. “It has been a gift. I don’t wish it on anyone else. But for me, it’s been important in my life.”
(Her family has asked for donations to the Olivia Newton-John Foundation at onjfoundationfund.org in lieu of flowers)
‘I HAVE A LOT OF LOVE AROUND ME’
ONJ SHARES HER INSIGHTS IN HER LAST INTERVIEW WITH WHO
- WHO
I focus on the positive side of things, no matter what the challenge,” Newton-John told WHO at the beginning of this year of her cancer battle. “There are always challenges in life. Everybody has them. You just need to give yourself a moment, pick yourself up and head in the direction you want to finish in.”
Living daily with the reality of stage four cancer, the pop icon has no interest in grim statistics or time limits. “They’ll quote statistics, which is what you do not want to focus on,” she said. “People need to be positive and give you positive feedback, and not burst into tears. I think just being open to learning and growing through tough times is the way to evolve and become stronger – for yourself and others. I have always been the person to look at the cup as half full. Positive thinking is so important to living a healthy and happy life.”
The four-time Grammy Award winner used this upbeat attitude to help get her through the past two years of COVIDrelated lockdowns that saw her unable to visit her “heart home” of Australia.
“While, like everyone, I wish COVID wasn't happening, it has given me the opportunity – for the first time in my life – to stay home,” she said. “My entire career has kept me travelling and while I loved it, I am loving time at home with my husband, spending more time with my daughter and my animals. I have a lot of love, nature and animals around me. They are my healing and how I stay even-keeled. Being in nature really centres my spirit. Other than that, through lockdown I also learnt how to bake bread – something I never thought I would do! And I created some artwork to auction off to help raise funds for my Olivia Newton-John Foundation
– a charity I set up to help fund research into plant-based medicines.”
Newton-John was a huge advocate for complementary treatments, using plant-based medicines in her own battle against cancer. And Easterling runs his own herbal company.
“How lucky am I to have a plant medicine man as my husband,” she chuckled. “He has been creating special tinctures and strains of cannabis to help with my symptoms. Medicinal cannabis is something that should be available to everyone who is going through a chronic illness or pain. I hope that we can help change the stigma around this amazing, healing plant. My dream is that it will be available in Australia soon.
Her work like this and through the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre she founded in her home town of Melbourne has become a source of inspiration for millions of cancer sufferers around the world.
“I have had such a blessed life that
I am grateful to be able to give back where I can,” she explained.
Last year, the singer released two songs, including one duetting with daughter, Lattanzi, and worked on celebrations around the 40th anniversary of her ’80s smash-hit ‘Physical’, a milestone that tied in with her induction into the Australian Women in Music Awards Honour Roll.
She also realised getting older was a “gift”. “We only have the present – everything else, the past and future, we can’t control. As you get older, wisdom teaches you to focus on the ‘now’. I think I always tried to be in the moment because I never knew how many moments we would have – as none of us do.”
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