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Affichage des articles dont le libellé est daily telegraph. Afficher tous les articles
Affichage des articles dont le libellé est daily telegraph. Afficher tous les articles
mercredi 5 avril 2023
samedi 9 avril 2022
MA MEILLEURE AMIE
Dans une récente interview pour le Daily Telegraph, la toujours pétillante Jane Seymour réitère son affection et l'amitiée particulière qui la lie à Olivia Newton-John !
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9 AVRIL 1977
A cette date, ABBA est numéro 1 du classement américain BILLBOARD HOT 100 avec DANCING QUEEN !!
ONJ, elle, stagne à la 20ème place avec son titre SAM !
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vendredi 29 janvier 2021
LA PHOTO D'EBAY
Sur le tournage de GREASE ...
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BBC2 INTERVIEW
ONJ et Chloe Lattanzi sur les ondes de la BBC2 de bon matin dans le programme de ZOE BALL BREAKFAST SHOW ..
L'interview débute approximativement vers les 2.02.00 ...
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THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)
30 Jan 2021
Australia has produced countless world class singers from all manner of genres. It’s almost impossible to rank them, so we’ve got music writers Kathy McCabe and Cameron Adams plus broadcasters Molly Meldrum, Myf Warhurst and Ash London to go through some our finest vocalists decade by decade
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN
We forget how immense ONJ’s career was in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and how she was an early devotee of pivoting – from Eurovision to country to carnal pop and even new age healing music. Cameron: “While she didn’t write most of her hits, the emotion in Olivia’s voice let her own the songs, setting her above many pop stars. Play Xanadu, Hopelessly Devoted to You, I Honestly Love You or Magic, her vocal delivery adds to the pop perfection.”
jeudi 28 janvier 2021
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
ON SONG
ONJ and Chloe in harmony
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) / COURIER MAIL /HERALD SUN/THE ADVERTISER
29 Jan 2021CAMERON ADAMS
Olivia Newton-John may be one of our most recognisable voices but there’s one sound of Australia she pines for. “I miss the sounds of the birds in the morning,” Newton-John says from her Californian ranch. “I really miss Australia; Australia is still my heart home.”
While she was born in England in 1948 (she was made a dame in 2019), the singer’s family emigrated to Melbourne in 1954.
“Even though I went back to England when I was 16, for my career, those years from five to 16 I spent in Australia, they’re the very formative years – that’s a very important period in your life,” Newton-John says. “It’s why Australia is so special to me.”
Her daughter, Chloe Lattanzi, has spent the past few months living with Newton-John and her husband John Easterling.
Last year a friend told Newton-John she had a song – written by a cousin – she wanted the superstar to hear.
“I thought, ‘Gosh, what if it’s terrible?’” Newton-John says. “Anyway, I played it. I was sitting with John and we both got very emotional. I just had this knowingness I needed to record it.
“I’d decided I wasn’t going to sing any more – I was just going to hang out and have fun – but I knew I had to record this and I had to record it with Chloe. This song moved me and hopefully it can move other people.”
After her cancer returned in 2017, Newton-John effectively retired from touring and recording new music.
However, the song Window In the Wall had a positive message that instantly appealed to the singer and her daughter.
“People talk a lot about unity and healing, but only if you think the way I do,” Lattanzi says. “What this song is about is finding the similarities even if people see things differently to you, and showing people love even if they think differently to you.”
Indeed, Newton-John’s trademark positivity (she calls herself a cancer “thriver”, not survivor, and never uses terms like battle or war to discuss her health) even extends to the pandemic.
“As much as it’s been a difficult time there have been some positives: a lot of families are forced to be together and learn new things about each other and about life and community they hadn’t focused on, because they’re so distracted by everything,” she says.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity to have people remember we all share this planet at this time.”
The song’s video was filmed at Newton-John’s ranch in Santa Barbara – where Easterling grows the strains of medicinal cannabis she uses for healing and pain relief. (Lattanzi usually lives on a cannabis farm in Oregon).
“It’s not a bad place to be locked down; we’re very fortunate,” Newton-John says. “We’re in a little, quiet town. The danger is everywhere; you just have to take precautions. We wear masks when we go shopping, try to stay safe.”
“But we don’t live in fear,” Lattanzi adds.
While Newton-John is in constant contact with her family in Melbourne (“Australia’s done a wonderful job with the virus,” she notes) she has no plans to return any time soon – and had to miss her annual walk for the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre last year. “We can’t come back right now,” she says. “I don’t want to risk flying, to be honest, with my immune system. “Even though it’s good, I’m a little compromised, so I don’t want to take any chances.” And fans will get more music from Newton-John. As well as recording for Delta Goodrem’s Christmas album and Barry Gibb’s No. 1 album, Greenfields, she’s working on her own duets album, which will include Window In the Wall as well as some unheard duets from her vault. “I’m just going to do things that give me pleasure, without having to tour,” Newton-John says. “I lived that life between the plane and the hotel and the stage; it was great but I’m enjoying this new life very much.”
I’d decided I wasn’t going to sing any more – I was just going to hang out and have fun – but I knew I had to record this
Window In the Wall is out now
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Et donc on apprend qu'ONJ va nous sortir un album de duos composé d'inédits .. issus de ses archives ! Je n'ose même pas imaginer tout ce qu'elle a dans ses archives ... mais à quand un vrai album solo !
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FACEBOOK OFFICIELS
Please tune in on Friday, January 29 to see our interview on @extra talking about our new single “Window in the Wall" Check your local listings! Green Hill Music Primary Wave Chloe Lattanzi
Publiée par Olivia Newton-John sur Jeudi 28 janvier 2021
dimanche 9 août 2020
The Only Cure Is Kindness
Olivia takes on bear bile farms
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)
10 Aug 2020
OLIVIA Newton-John says the pandemic has taught her what’s truly important in life. The actress said COVID-19 was “tragic” and “preventable” while calling for a “reset of humanity’s relationship with nature”, specifically bear bile farming, in a new campaign called The Only Cure is Kindness. “We have not been kind to the earth, to her animals, or to her environment,” Newton-John said. The campaign created by Animals Asia highlights the mistreatment of animals “as a root cause of pandemics”. “They’ve rescued hundreds of bears from bile farming, and the care they show the bears is second to none,” she said.
A galaxy of global superstars, led by comedian Ricky Gervais, pop star Mýa, actors Dame Judi Dench, Olivia Newton John, and Tzi Ma, as well as world renowned conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall, have all come together to record an impassioned video calling for a reset of humanity’s relationship with nature in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis and its zoonotic origins.
https://worldanimalnews.com/joaquin-phoenix-ricky-gervais-along-with-many-influential-stars-demand-an-end-to-bear-bile-farming-with-animals-asias-new-the-only-cure-is-kindness-campaign/
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YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU
Je n'ai jamais compris pourquoi sa superbe version de ce standard n'a jamais retrouvé grâce et sa place sur les sorties en CD.. depuis tout ce temps ... et je crois que je n'aurai jamais la réponse de mon vivant !
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DANCIN'
Déception : Je me souviens d'avoir été terriblement déçu la première fois que j'ai vu XANADU sur grand écran ! 1 parce qu'on entendait pas beaucoup OLIVIA chanter MAGIC et 2 on ne la voyais pas dans la scène qui suit .. alors que c'est sa voix ! On y crois pas au 3 nanas ! ONJ au milieu ça l'aurait sans doute fait un peu mieux .. puisque c'était la muse qui dans le film inspire les 2 autres héros ...
Sinon ce grand Mash Up est génial !!! Kenny Ortéga à fait un boulot sublime sur les chorégraphies !
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)
10 Aug 2020
OLIVIA Newton-John says the pandemic has taught her what’s truly important in life. The actress said COVID-19 was “tragic” and “preventable” while calling for a “reset of humanity’s relationship with nature”, specifically bear bile farming, in a new campaign called The Only Cure is Kindness. “We have not been kind to the earth, to her animals, or to her environment,” Newton-John said. The campaign created by Animals Asia highlights the mistreatment of animals “as a root cause of pandemics”. “They’ve rescued hundreds of bears from bile farming, and the care they show the bears is second to none,” she said.
A galaxy of global superstars, led by comedian Ricky Gervais, pop star Mýa, actors Dame Judi Dench, Olivia Newton John, and Tzi Ma, as well as world renowned conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall, have all come together to record an impassioned video calling for a reset of humanity’s relationship with nature in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis and its zoonotic origins.
https://worldanimalnews.com/joaquin-phoenix-ricky-gervais-along-with-many-influential-stars-demand-an-end-to-bear-bile-farming-with-animals-asias-new-the-only-cure-is-kindness-campaign/
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YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU
Je n'ai jamais compris pourquoi sa superbe version de ce standard n'a jamais retrouvé grâce et sa place sur les sorties en CD.. depuis tout ce temps ... et je crois que je n'aurai jamais la réponse de mon vivant !
.
DANCIN'
Déception : Je me souviens d'avoir été terriblement déçu la première fois que j'ai vu XANADU sur grand écran ! 1 parce qu'on entendait pas beaucoup OLIVIA chanter MAGIC et 2 on ne la voyais pas dans la scène qui suit .. alors que c'est sa voix ! On y crois pas au 3 nanas ! ONJ au milieu ça l'aurait sans doute fait un peu mieux .. puisque c'était la muse qui dans le film inspire les 2 autres héros ...
Sinon ce grand Mash Up est génial !!! Kenny Ortéga à fait un boulot sublime sur les chorégraphies !
mardi 11 février 2020
#FIREFIGHTAUSTRALIA
therealonj :
People ask me “How can we help with the Australian bushfires?” By buying this lovely t-shirt you will be helping my fellow Aussies and our unique wildlife who lost their homes and habitat. 🐨 The OFFICIAL Fire Fight Australia t-shirt is available for pre-order now at www.firefightaustralia.com. 100% of proceeds from this limited edition t-shirt are going to national bushfire relief.
People ask me “How can we help with the Australian bushfires?” By buying this limited edition t-shirt you will be helping my fellow Aussies & our unique wildlife who lost their homes & habitat. https://t.co/rRlBkkWTep. 100% of proceeds are going to national bushfire relief. pic.twitter.com/o69uei5HH2— Olivia Newton-John (@olivianj) February 11, 2020
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CHLOE DEBUT EN POINTE
Herald Sun
12 Feb 2020
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN’s daughter CHLOE LATTANZI says her debut on Dancing With the Stars will be “imprinted on my mind and heart forever”, in a dedication to her mum, who is battling stage 4 breast cancer.
The American singer said she was thrilled to share the experience with the Grease star after what had been a difficult time for the family.
“It was so special, it was kind of like a moment in my life that will be imprinted on my mind and my heart forever,” she said.
Newton-John and her husband JOHN EASTERLING were present when Lattanzi (above) danced the foxtrot with partner GUSTAVO VIGLIO.
In May 2017, the Australian was diagnosed with breast cancer for a third time, more than 20 years after her first diagnosis, and Lattanzi said medical marijuana had helped ease her mum’s pain.
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Chloe trips the light fantastic for Olivia
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney)
12 Feb 2020
Olivia Newton-John and daughter Chloe Lattanzi.
Olivia NewtonJohn’s daughter Chloe Lattanzi dedicated her debut on Dancing With The Stars to her mum, who is battling stage 4 breast cancer. “It was so special, it was kind of like a moment in my life that will be imprinted on my mind and my heart forever,” Lattanzi told Confidential.
“I was not just dancing for me but I was dancing for her and my husband and her husband John. We’ve all been through so much this past year as a family and I feel like my dance really represented strength and coming through it all together as a family ... it just felt so full of love. It was very powerful.”
Newton-John and her husband John Easterling sat front row when Lattanzi danced the foxtrot with her professional dance partner Gustavo Viglio on Sunday night.
The past few years have been bittersweet for Lattanzi as Newton-John, 71, continues her brave battle with cancer.
In May 2017, the Grease star was diagnosed with breast cancer for a third time, more than 20 years after her first diagnosis and Lattanzi said medical marijuana has helped ease her mum’s pain.
“She’s doing great. She’s being treated by John with plant medicine,” Lattanzi said.
“We hope to bring awareness about the power of plants and their ability to help stop cancer in its tracks.”
Newton-John often speaks about the importance of medical marijuana in her cancer treatment and has campaigned for Australia to relax its drug laws. Lattanzi grows marijuana legally on a farm in Oregon and Easterling has also been growing the plant to support his wife’s recovery.
Lattanzi, daughter of actor Matt Lattanzi, is expected to delve into some of their struggles over the last few years in her new album, four years after her 2016 album No Pain.
dimanche 26 janvier 2020
G'DAY USA édition 2020
Olivia Newton-John était vraiment magnifique hier sur le tapis rouge de la dernière édition du G'Day USA, posant avec son mari John Easterling et sa nièce Tottie Goldsmith.
L'icône de Grease, avait opté pour un chemisier noir et doré, associé à un pantalon coordonné, des bottes noires et une veste sur mesure.
Ses cheveux blonds étaient coiffées par vagues, et son maquillage comprenait des sourcils définis, des yeux doublés de khôl et des lèvres brillantes.
Olivia Newton-John (C) attends G'Day USA 2020 at Beverly Wilshire, A Four Seasons Hotel on January 25, 2020 in Beverly Hills, California.
Olivia Newton-John looked beautiful as she posed with husband John Easterling and her niece Tottie Goldsmith. The 71-year-old Grease icon opted for a black and gold blouse, teamed with coordinating trousers, black boots and a tailored jacket.
Her cropped blonde tresses were styled in waves, and her makeup included defined brows, kohl-lined eyes and a glossy nude lip.
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LES INSTAS
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TWEETS
.@olivianj has revealed her cancer battle may have turned a corner, finding huge success with medical cannabis in the U.S. She was all smiles today as she rallied with Aussies in Hollywood for a bushfire fundraiser. https://t.co/VZ3A1cpmr5 @AshleeMullany #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/wq9thccsKT— 7NEWS Brisbane (@7NewsBrisbane) January 26, 2020
.@olivianj has revealed her cancer battle may have turned a corner, finding huge success with medicinal marijuana in the U.S. She was all smiles today, but not thinking of herself, as she rallied with Aussies in Hollywood for a bushfire fundraiser. https://t.co/TWh1KQycs4 #7NEWS pic.twitter.com/tkOFkoJD4l— 7NEWS Sydney (@7NewsSydney) January 26, 2020
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Les coupures de Web
Celle du Dailymail :
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-7929631/Naomi-Watts-cuts-stylish-figure-purple-lace-leads-star-arrivals-GDay-USA-event-LA.html
et du Daily Telegraph
jeudi 31 octobre 2019
International Press Review
... un méga grand merci à Kay !
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Olivia Newton-john
‘I’ve learnt to make cancer my friend’
The Daily Telegraph
31 Oct 2019
The Olivia Newton-john auction is in Beverly Hills this Saturday and online at Julien’s Auctions (juliensauctions.com). A portion of the proceeds will go to the Olivia Newton-john Cancer Wellness & Research Centre (onjcancercentre.org)
Olivia Newton-john is telling me why she was going to turn down Grease.
“There were a couple of reasons why I didn’t want to do it,” explains the 71-year-old. “I’d just made a movie that was a total disaster, and didn’t want to jeopardise a musical career that was taking off by making another bad film. Oh, and I was worried that I was too old.”
Throwing back her tousled blonde head, the Australian actress bursts out laughing. “I was 29 – and convinced I was way too old to be playing a 17-year-old. Of course, now I look back and think, ‘What was I worried about?’”
Joyous incredulity seems to be Newton-john’s default emotion today. Which makes sense. After all, we’re sitting in Julien’s Auction House, Beverly Hills, surrounded by more than 40 years’ worth of the star’s memorabilia.
In pride of place is the black leather jacket and skin-tight trouser combo from Grease’s closing scene (expected to fetch $200,000) and, to our left, Sandy’s Pink Ladies jacket. There’s the custom-made Fifties lace gown she wore to the 1978 premiere of Grease in Los Angeles, costumes from Newton-john’s cult-classic Xanadu, her Physical tour dress and a wall of music awards collected by the four-time Grammy award-winning singer over the years.
If all that weren’t enough to feel joyously incredulous about, there’s the memory of her old friend John Travolta “coming to see me and convincing me to do it [Grease] – because I honestly didn’t think I was going to. And when I asked for a screen test to see if we had the chemistry needed, that test cemented it.” A gurgle of laughter starts up again, “because we did have it. Lots of it.”
The Cambridge-born daughter of an MI6 officer who worked at Bletchley Park still can’t quite believe that Randal Kleiser’s raunchy teen homage to the Fifties went on to take $400 million at the box office, making it one of the highest-grossing musical films of all time – and Newton-john an overnight global sensation. Or that the gaggle of crossgenerational cameraphone-wielding fans assembled outside the auction house now are trying to get a shot of her.
But, perhaps most of all, Newtonjohn is joyous and incredulous that she’s here now, “and doing great”, despite the stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis she was given in May 2017, when the illness she started battling in 1992 was revealed to have metastasised to her sacrum.
“I don’t like that word ‘battling’,” she frowns – a slender, ageless figure in a black leather jacket, with the same sweet, high-cheekboned face the world fell in love with 41 years ago. “I’ve never seen cancer as a fight or a battle. In fact, over the decades I’ve kind of befriended it – and right now I’m asking it to leave.
Because instead of picking a fight with my body, I would rather keep calm and thank it for everything it has done for me.”
She shakes her head. “I’m sure that sounds strange to someone who isn’t in my position. But I’ve had this since 1992, on and off, and been through all these different stages. I’ve been vegan and macrobiotic and I went for many months without sugar…” But a lot of those things felt like punishments?
“Yes! And I’m not saying they don’t work, but everybody has to choose their own path.”
The Olivia Newton-john Cancer Wellness & Research Centre she founded in
Melbourne in 2008 explores every one of those paths, from wellness programmes to breakthrough therapies.
But in terms of pain relief, one thing has worked above all else for Newtonjohn, and that’s medicinal marijuana.
Were it not for the tincture that John Easterling, her herbalist husband of 11 years, makes for her, the actress would have found it impossible to wean herself off the morphine she was forced to take when she fractured her sacrum. “And it was hard. But the tinctures really help. Nobody has ever died of cannabis, but opiates are killing people every day.”
Then there’s the attitude she has chosen to adopt in so many areas of her life, despite having experienced more than her fair share of hardship and grief: the loss of her elder sister, Rona, from a brain tumour; and the disappearance of longterm cameraman boyfriend Patrick Mcdermott, who vanished on a fishing trip off the Californian coast in 2005 – and whom investigators have since alleged isn’t dead, but alive, well and living in Mexico.
“Right now, I do things that give me pleasure and joy,” she shrugs. “I eat healthily, but if I want a piece of chocolate or a cookie, I’ll have one – because it makes me happy. Have you read that wonderful book, Spark Joy, by Marie Kondo?” she asks of the bestselling decluttering bible. “You could extend it to all of life, really. These things brought me joy,” she says, gesturing to the 500-odd pieces of history surrounding her, “but I’m letting them go. I can’t take them with
me, and my daughter is not going to want all this.”
Growing up in her mother’s shadow hasn’t been easy for 33-yearold Chloe Rose Lattanzi – Newtonjohn’s only child from her first marriage to actor Matt Lattanzi. And the actress and singer, who had a hit with You Have to Believe, which she co-wrote with her mother in 2016 – has spoken out about the deepseated issues she has suffered over the years: the anorexia, depression and substance abuse that sent her into a self-destructive spiral in her twenties. “Fame messes you up,” she told one interviewer in 2013.
Newton-john is the first to acknowledge how hard it must have been for her daughter.
“Having a mother who is famous, and having this image that nothing goes wrong [for them], but also feeling you’re having to share them with the rest of the world… that must have been tough. And the teenage years were not easy,” she adds. “But now Chloe’s got me to herself – and we’re very close. Actually, I think this,” she says, not willing to give her diagnosis the weight of its name, “has brought us even closer together.”
Having her daughter looking after her for months at a time “was a really bonding experience”, says Newton-john. “She’s really maturing and realising that I can be vulnerable, too. And the other day, she said to me, ‘Mum, I had my own form of cancer, so we can heal together.’ Which I thought was really beautiful. But she’s on top of things, and I’m so proud of her.”
Like every mother, Newtonjohn obsesses over the choices she made. The fame might have been beyond her control, but she often wonders whether her decision not to tell her six-year-old about the original breast cancer diagnosis in 1992 was the right one.
“Chloe’s little friend Colette had died the year before of kidney cancer, and we were all still in shock about that when I got my diagnosis. Looking back, I wish I had told her, because when she found out about it from her friend at school, she came to me, saying, ‘Mummy, you should have told me – I would have taken care of you’.” Newton-john closes her eyes at the poignancy of the memory. “But you make your decisions, at the time I thought it was the right one, and what matters now is that Chloe looks to me more and more for advice. And I’m so happy to give it to her.” Knowing what you would and wouldn’t be prepared to do for the sake of your career is something Newton-john has always urged her daughter to keep in mind. “As a woman, we’ve all had issues on sets…” she starts. Metoo issues? “Well, I don’t want to go there,” she warns. “But it is so difficult being a young actress and starting out in this business, because it’s all about boundaries and knowing what those are.”
She pauses. “The casting couch thing was real in my life, too. I never really had it done that heavily, because I think I always managed to make light of things and let it go – but also I would never put myself in certain positions. That disastrous movie I had done just before Grease,” she goes on, “it was called Tomorrow, and shot in Pinewood Studios. I was there when the director said, ‘There’s a scene in the movie when you go up into space and your clothes come off and you’re just going to be in a bra and panties.’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that.’ My career was important to me, but so were my boundaries.”
It’s a Sandy With Her Inner Steellike sentiment, and although I know that our time is up, and the chants of “ONJ!” are growing more insistent outside, I’m curious to know one thing: when was the last time she watched Grease?
“That I can tell you,” she grins, explaining that it was a little under a decade ago, when Travolta – who has remained a close friend – invited Newton-john and her husband to dine with him at his house in Florida, and to see his newly refurbished plane while they were there.
“Somehow, in conversation, it emerged that my John had never seen Grease.” What? “Well, he’d been working in the Amazon, so it wasn’t really in his realm of consciousness. But John couldn’t believe it. So he took us on to his plane, and he had set up Grease to be playing,” she laughs. “John watched it from beginning to end, and when the credits rolled, he turned to me and said, ‘You know what? That’s a really good movie…’”
‘My career was important to me, but so were my boundaries’
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LE TRÈS ATTENDU AUSTRALIAN WOMAN'S WEEKLY
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LES PHOTOS D'EBAY
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COUPURE DE WEB
Pour la galerie de photos !
https://www.promipool.com/celebrities/grease-star-olivia-newton-john-how-is-she-doing-these-days
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
Olivia Newton-john
‘I’ve learnt to make cancer my friend’
The Daily Telegraph
31 Oct 2019
The Olivia Newton-john auction is in Beverly Hills this Saturday and online at Julien’s Auctions (juliensauctions.com). A portion of the proceeds will go to the Olivia Newton-john Cancer Wellness & Research Centre (onjcancercentre.org)
Olivia Newton-john is telling me why she was going to turn down Grease.
“There were a couple of reasons why I didn’t want to do it,” explains the 71-year-old. “I’d just made a movie that was a total disaster, and didn’t want to jeopardise a musical career that was taking off by making another bad film. Oh, and I was worried that I was too old.”
Throwing back her tousled blonde head, the Australian actress bursts out laughing. “I was 29 – and convinced I was way too old to be playing a 17-year-old. Of course, now I look back and think, ‘What was I worried about?’”
Joyous incredulity seems to be Newton-john’s default emotion today. Which makes sense. After all, we’re sitting in Julien’s Auction House, Beverly Hills, surrounded by more than 40 years’ worth of the star’s memorabilia.
In pride of place is the black leather jacket and skin-tight trouser combo from Grease’s closing scene (expected to fetch $200,000) and, to our left, Sandy’s Pink Ladies jacket. There’s the custom-made Fifties lace gown she wore to the 1978 premiere of Grease in Los Angeles, costumes from Newton-john’s cult-classic Xanadu, her Physical tour dress and a wall of music awards collected by the four-time Grammy award-winning singer over the years.
If all that weren’t enough to feel joyously incredulous about, there’s the memory of her old friend John Travolta “coming to see me and convincing me to do it [Grease] – because I honestly didn’t think I was going to. And when I asked for a screen test to see if we had the chemistry needed, that test cemented it.” A gurgle of laughter starts up again, “because we did have it. Lots of it.”
The Cambridge-born daughter of an MI6 officer who worked at Bletchley Park still can’t quite believe that Randal Kleiser’s raunchy teen homage to the Fifties went on to take $400 million at the box office, making it one of the highest-grossing musical films of all time – and Newton-john an overnight global sensation. Or that the gaggle of crossgenerational cameraphone-wielding fans assembled outside the auction house now are trying to get a shot of her.
But, perhaps most of all, Newtonjohn is joyous and incredulous that she’s here now, “and doing great”, despite the stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis she was given in May 2017, when the illness she started battling in 1992 was revealed to have metastasised to her sacrum.
“I don’t like that word ‘battling’,” she frowns – a slender, ageless figure in a black leather jacket, with the same sweet, high-cheekboned face the world fell in love with 41 years ago. “I’ve never seen cancer as a fight or a battle. In fact, over the decades I’ve kind of befriended it – and right now I’m asking it to leave.
Because instead of picking a fight with my body, I would rather keep calm and thank it for everything it has done for me.”
She shakes her head. “I’m sure that sounds strange to someone who isn’t in my position. But I’ve had this since 1992, on and off, and been through all these different stages. I’ve been vegan and macrobiotic and I went for many months without sugar…” But a lot of those things felt like punishments?
“Yes! And I’m not saying they don’t work, but everybody has to choose their own path.”
The Olivia Newton-john Cancer Wellness & Research Centre she founded in
Melbourne in 2008 explores every one of those paths, from wellness programmes to breakthrough therapies.
But in terms of pain relief, one thing has worked above all else for Newtonjohn, and that’s medicinal marijuana.
Were it not for the tincture that John Easterling, her herbalist husband of 11 years, makes for her, the actress would have found it impossible to wean herself off the morphine she was forced to take when she fractured her sacrum. “And it was hard. But the tinctures really help. Nobody has ever died of cannabis, but opiates are killing people every day.”
Then there’s the attitude she has chosen to adopt in so many areas of her life, despite having experienced more than her fair share of hardship and grief: the loss of her elder sister, Rona, from a brain tumour; and the disappearance of longterm cameraman boyfriend Patrick Mcdermott, who vanished on a fishing trip off the Californian coast in 2005 – and whom investigators have since alleged isn’t dead, but alive, well and living in Mexico.
“Right now, I do things that give me pleasure and joy,” she shrugs. “I eat healthily, but if I want a piece of chocolate or a cookie, I’ll have one – because it makes me happy. Have you read that wonderful book, Spark Joy, by Marie Kondo?” she asks of the bestselling decluttering bible. “You could extend it to all of life, really. These things brought me joy,” she says, gesturing to the 500-odd pieces of history surrounding her, “but I’m letting them go. I can’t take them with
me, and my daughter is not going to want all this.”
Growing up in her mother’s shadow hasn’t been easy for 33-yearold Chloe Rose Lattanzi – Newtonjohn’s only child from her first marriage to actor Matt Lattanzi. And the actress and singer, who had a hit with You Have to Believe, which she co-wrote with her mother in 2016 – has spoken out about the deepseated issues she has suffered over the years: the anorexia, depression and substance abuse that sent her into a self-destructive spiral in her twenties. “Fame messes you up,” she told one interviewer in 2013.
Newton-john is the first to acknowledge how hard it must have been for her daughter.
“Having a mother who is famous, and having this image that nothing goes wrong [for them], but also feeling you’re having to share them with the rest of the world… that must have been tough. And the teenage years were not easy,” she adds. “But now Chloe’s got me to herself – and we’re very close. Actually, I think this,” she says, not willing to give her diagnosis the weight of its name, “has brought us even closer together.”
Having her daughter looking after her for months at a time “was a really bonding experience”, says Newton-john. “She’s really maturing and realising that I can be vulnerable, too. And the other day, she said to me, ‘Mum, I had my own form of cancer, so we can heal together.’ Which I thought was really beautiful. But she’s on top of things, and I’m so proud of her.”
Like every mother, Newtonjohn obsesses over the choices she made. The fame might have been beyond her control, but she often wonders whether her decision not to tell her six-year-old about the original breast cancer diagnosis in 1992 was the right one.
“Chloe’s little friend Colette had died the year before of kidney cancer, and we were all still in shock about that when I got my diagnosis. Looking back, I wish I had told her, because when she found out about it from her friend at school, she came to me, saying, ‘Mummy, you should have told me – I would have taken care of you’.” Newton-john closes her eyes at the poignancy of the memory. “But you make your decisions, at the time I thought it was the right one, and what matters now is that Chloe looks to me more and more for advice. And I’m so happy to give it to her.” Knowing what you would and wouldn’t be prepared to do for the sake of your career is something Newton-john has always urged her daughter to keep in mind. “As a woman, we’ve all had issues on sets…” she starts. Metoo issues? “Well, I don’t want to go there,” she warns. “But it is so difficult being a young actress and starting out in this business, because it’s all about boundaries and knowing what those are.”
She pauses. “The casting couch thing was real in my life, too. I never really had it done that heavily, because I think I always managed to make light of things and let it go – but also I would never put myself in certain positions. That disastrous movie I had done just before Grease,” she goes on, “it was called Tomorrow, and shot in Pinewood Studios. I was there when the director said, ‘There’s a scene in the movie when you go up into space and your clothes come off and you’re just going to be in a bra and panties.’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that.’ My career was important to me, but so were my boundaries.”
It’s a Sandy With Her Inner Steellike sentiment, and although I know that our time is up, and the chants of “ONJ!” are growing more insistent outside, I’m curious to know one thing: when was the last time she watched Grease?
“That I can tell you,” she grins, explaining that it was a little under a decade ago, when Travolta – who has remained a close friend – invited Newton-john and her husband to dine with him at his house in Florida, and to see his newly refurbished plane while they were there.
“Somehow, in conversation, it emerged that my John had never seen Grease.” What? “Well, he’d been working in the Amazon, so it wasn’t really in his realm of consciousness. But John couldn’t believe it. So he took us on to his plane, and he had set up Grease to be playing,” she laughs. “John watched it from beginning to end, and when the credits rolled, he turned to me and said, ‘You know what? That’s a really good movie…’”
‘My career was important to me, but so were my boundaries’
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