But in its day it was really quite naughty. ‘What they sing about and what they say? “Physical” is so tame in comparison. ‘‘‘Physical” is like a lullaby compared to what’s on the air now,’ she says, amused. This mildly suggestive song had a sweaty video featuring muscle boys making eyes at each other. Just as she ditched the girl-next-door image in Grease, Olivia did the same with her pop career in 1981, putting out ‘Physical’. That was one of the most generous displays of kindness I have ever experienced: I got my jacket back and money for the foundation.’ This wonderful man had bought the jacket at auction but was bringing it back to me, because he thought it should be with me. ‘About a month later they told me to close my eyes… I heard rustling. ‘Do you know the wonderful second half of that story?’ she asks. The black leather jacket and spray-on trousers from those scenes were precious to Olivia but in 2019 she sold them to raise money for her foundation – for $405,700 (£314,000). Others say ‘You’re The One That I Want’ is about as hot as a duet can get in a family movie. Some wince at the way clean-cut Sandy transforms into a vamp to get her man, driving Danny (John Travolta) wild. Olivia has said, ‘It’s a fun story and I’ve never taken it too seriously.’Īs Sandy with John Travolta as Danny in Grease. When the BBC showed the film on Boxing Day, there were complaints that it was ‘sexist’ and ‘rapey’ even though it is set in the 50s with the attitudes of the era. There’s an innocence about Grease that is appealing because this is such a different era.’ Inevitably, there has been a backlash. ‘Forty years later and people still love the movie and talk about it. ‘ Grease took me to a higher level,’ she says. America beckoned and she was pretty big in country music before being cast opposite John Travolta in the movie adaptation of a certain Broadway hit. The family moved to Australia and Olivia became a star in her teens. Her grandfather won the Nobel Prize for Physics and her father was an MI5 officer helping to crack the Enigma code and win the Second World War. But the first six years of her life were spent in Cambridge, where Olivia was born into a remarkable family. She still sounds Australian, despite having lived in America for nearly half a century. Going outside is the way for me to get back to gratitude.’ Olivia has released a new duet with daughter Chloe Rose. I play with my dog or my horses, pick some flowers or do some pruning. But I work through it and make a decision that I am going to be OK. Surely there are moments when life gets her down? ‘If I am having a difficult day or pain, of course. I don’t read statistics and I don’t go there.’ There is great power in the belief system and that is why it frightens me when doctors tell people, “Oh, you only have this amount of time.” Because you can make that belief system a reality. I know not everyone is as fortunate as I have been, but the mind is an extremely important part of your healing. ‘She is now in her 30s and I am still here, so I am very lucky. But I had to make a decision that I was going to be OK, because I had a young daughter to raise.’ Chloe Rose was six years old. ‘When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992 I had my moment of fear and panic. Olivia is also a great believer in the power of positive thinking. I just want to find out if we can heal cancer in a gentler way that will boost the immune system – rather than destroy it.’ Together they have launched the Olivia Newton-John Foundation to fund research into the ways cannabis and other botanicals can help people. But she has the support of her husband and soulmate John Easterling, an expert on the Amazon. Very well.’ Life must be gruelling and scary at times, given that Olivia has had to learn to walk again after a tumour fractured a bone at the base of her spine three years ago (‘that was excruciating’). How is she doing now, at home on her ranch in the Californian sun? ‘I am really good, thank you. I’d had my moments but I wasn’t anywhere near there.’ So she put out a video statement to counter the fake news, smiling while announcing: ‘This is Olivia Newton-John and I just want to say that the rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated.’ ‘Ha! To read that you are dying or that you are nearly dead is kind of disturbing! Especially as I was feeling OK. Two years ago, there were even reports of her death. However, the difficult truth is that the breast cancer she survived in the 1990s has come back and spread, including to her bones. Olivia is 72 but looks and sounds as sunny as she did as Sandy in Grease more thanĤ0 years ago.
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