Australian singing and acting star Olivia Newton-John dies at age 73
Special details of Olivia Newton-John’s last ever concert have been revealed, as the world mourns an Aussie legend.
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The crystalline voice, radiant screen presence and relentless positivity of entertainment icon and cancer cure crusader Dame Olivia Newton-John will shine on for millions of fans mourning her death at 73.
The Grammy Award-winning actor and singer passed away peacefully at her ranch surrounded by family and friends Monday morning local time, according to her husband John Easterling.
“Dame Olivia Newton-John passed away peacefully at her Ranch in Southern California this morning, surrounded by family and friends. We ask that everyone please respect the family’s privacy during this very difficult time,” Easterling said in a statement.
“Olivia has been a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years sharing her journey with breast cancer.
“Her healing inspiration and pioneering experience with plant medicine continues with the Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund, dedicated to researching plant medicine and cancer. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that any donations be made in her memory to the Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund.”
“Olivia is survived by her husband John Easterling; daughter Chloe Lattanzi; sister Sarah Newton-John; brother Toby Newton-John; nieces and nephews Tottie, Fiona and Brett Goldsmith; Emerson, Charlie, Zac, Jeremy, Randall, and Pierz Newton-John; Jude Newton-Stock, Layla Lee; Kira and Tasha Edelstein; and Brin and Valerie Hall”.
Three days before her death, Newton-John paid tribute to her enduring love affair with husband John Easterling, who she married in 2008, with a “flashbackfriday” post.
The touching post featured an image of the pair embracing and was captioned with a simple red love-heart emoji.
Within hours of the news of Newton-John’s passing, fans and her A-list circle of friends celebrated her legacy online with many embracing her iconic hits.
Xanadu raced to the top of the Australian iTunes chart, with Hopelessly Devoted To You at No.2 and You’re The One That I Want at No.5.
Her 2016 compilation of hits titled Hopelessly Devoted was closing in on The Best of The Seekers on the album charts while the Grease and Xanadu soundtracks were also in the top 10.
Newton-John was fearless in her public campaign of living with her cancer, which returned in 2017, and had dedicated herself to the work of her Cancer Wellness and Research Centres in Melbourne and the US.
Tributes are flowing for the performer who was best known as Sandy from Grease, a string of hit albums in the 1970s and 1980s, and her courage in overcoming not just her recurring illness but devastating personal tragedy.
NEWTON-JOHN’S LAST STAGE ACT
It was a “quick yes” when John Farnham rang his beloved sister-in-music Olivia Newton-John in early February 2020 to ask if she wouldn’t mind jumping on a plane and coming back home for a gig.
As thousands of Australians counted the cost of the deadly Black Summer bushfires, promoter Paul Dainty and Farnham were plotting the finale of what would be the wildly successful Fire Fight benefit concert.
Newton-John nicknamed him Bing Farnham during the recording of their wildly successful Friends For Christmas album, which was first released in 2016 and remains an annual favourite among their fans.
They have performed together numerous times, proving a box office smash with their Two Strong Hearts national tour in 2015 and she was Farnham’s special guest at the Fire Fight benefit when she joined him to sing their signature duet Two Strong Hearts.
It was her last performance on stage in Australia.
They knew each other so well they could tell you how the other likes their cup of tea.
“I love pretty much everything about her; she’s one of my closest friends,” Farnham said. “I do love her with my soul and to have a musical relationship is even better.”
While she was most famous for her singing and acting, in recent years, Newton-John was honoured more for the remarkable generosity with which she performed her charity work for cancer treatment and the environment, and for the grace with which she dealt with regular public scrutiny of her health.
Farnham and Newton-John had been friends since the 60s, coming up together in the golden age of Australian variety TV.
While Newton-John often had to be gently coaxed back on the road, she proved box office gold when united with Farnham, and then touring buddies with Anthony Warlow on the Main Event tour in 1998 and then again as a joint package on the Two Strong Hearts tour in 2015.
They were one of the highlights of the Sydney Olympics opening ceremony, singing the anthemic Dare To Dream to the packed stadium and the world.
And when Newton-John needed that extra sparkle of star power for her ONJ Gala, an annual event to raise money for her cancer wellness and research initiatives, who else would she call but Whispering Jack.
They knew each other so well they would delight in telling people how the other would take their tea.
So, as Dainty says, it was a “no-brainer” to ask Farnham to invite his music soul sister to participate in the Fire Fight concert which would be her final major live performance.
“It was an easy yes from Olivia and what made it easier was she loves John Farnham,” Dainty said.
“There was some intangible thing between them, they just clicked and had so much love and respect for each other.”
Backstage in the hours before their headlining performance, Newton-John hung out with Farnham and his band, reconnecting with musical director Chong Lim and some of the musicians she had worked with for decades.
“Everyone was in this big dressing room together, John and Olivia with (late manager) Glenn Wheatley and his wife Gaynor, chatting together before they were due to walk to the stage,” Dainty said.
“They were super pumped for the show, vibing and laughing together and Olivia was just so excited to go out there because she thought the concert was such a great endeavour.
“I will never forget the roar from the crowd when John introduced her and she bounded on stage. It was such a magic moment.”
Dainty said he hopes the music and television industry can join forces to continue her legacy with a concert telethon to raise money for her Cancer Wellness and Research Centre.
AUSTRALIA ALWAYS HOME FOR OLIVIA
Born in Cambridge, England to an illustrious military and academic family, Newton-John immigrated to Australia at the age of six, when her father Bryn was employed by the University of Melbourne.
While she lived in America for more than 45 years, Newton-John always considered Australia her spiritual home.
“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 said in early 2021. “It’s why Australia is so special to me.”
The apple-cheeked performer with the pure, dexterous voice achieved early career success, appearing on TV and radio in Australia with the stage-name of Lovely Livvy.
HOW GREASE AND TRAVOLTA CHANGED ONJ’S LIFE
After winning a talent show, she toured England in the 1960s and built a following across American and Australian pop and country charts in the 1970s.
She even represented England at Eurovision in 1974, placing fourth with the song Long Live Love.
But it was her Hollywood feature film debut as Sandy in the hit 1978 film Grease which launched to her global superstardom, the movie becoming a cult classic as it charted her transformation from small-town sweetheart to a spike-heeled, leather-clad seductress in command of her on-screen relationship with John Travolta.
Newton-John’s post-Grease success mirrored this same metamorphosis, with the demure blonde casting off her good-girl image in the quirky 1980 fantasy film Xanadu before producing her biggest album, Physical, in 1982.
With its less than subtle nod to sexual intercourse, the single was banned on some US radio stations and Newton-John, who was also considered a pioneer of modern music video clips, changed the reference to exercise in the film clip. It won the first ever Grammy for Best Video of the Year in 1983.
An influential trendsetter at her peak, the video spearheaded the gym-gear-as-fashion trend with young women and men sporting headbands and legwarmers.
After her 1984 marriage to actor Matt Lattanzi, whom she met while they were filming Xanadu, Newton-John refocused her touring career to care for her daughter Chloe, who was born two years later.
ONJ AS A BUSINESS PIONEER
She also launched a chain of 60 clothing stores, Koala Blue, with her best friend and fellow performer, Pat Farrar, to take casual Australian style to the world.
“We went back to Australia last Christmas, and we looked at the clothes and saw designs with kangaroos and koalas and wallabies; it was the perfect timing for us since these things were very different, very novel,” she said when she launched the pair’s first boutique in Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles in 1983.
OLIVIA’S CANCER BATTLE
It was during an attempted comeback tour in 1992 that Newton-John was first diagnosed with breast cancer, a battle which would be life-defining in her later years, with the beloved entertainer becoming a champion for cancer therapies and treatment.
With her trademark courage and thoughtfulness, Newton-John reflected on her fight with cancer in her uplifting album Gaia, in 1994.
Eventually she would go on to establish the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre in Melbourne and would raise millions to find treatments for cancer and improve the experience of sufferers.
OLIVIA FINDS LOVE AGAIN
After her marriage broke down with Lattanzi in 1995, Newton-John spent almost a decade with cameraman Patrick McDermott.
The relationship would end in tragedy and become one of Hollywood’s most enduring mysteries, after McDermott disappeared after a fishing trip off America’s West Coast in 2005.
Despite the US Coast Guard concluding in 2008 that McDermott was most likely “lost at sea”, a number of media outlets and private detectives reported sightings of him.
Newton-John said of his disappearance: “One of the hardest things is not knowing.”
It was after this tragedy that she met vitamin guru, John Easterling, who would be at her side for the rest of her days.
“I dated a little bit, but I wasn’t expecting to fall in love with him and then bam!” Newton-John said.
“I’m very lucky I have a wonderful, beautiful husband who is just so loving and fantastic. I always tell my friends you’re never too old to find love.”
He was at her side in January 2018 for the 40 year anniversary of Grease, which was celebrated in Los Angeles at the annual G’Day USA gala. Singer Delta Goodrem, who had played her idol in an Australian biopic about Newton-John, performed hits from the show before a buzzing crowd.
Her co-star John Travolta, who had also appeared beside her in 1983’s Two of a Kind, was another cheerleader at the gala, the pair having remained close friends for four decades.
“When you share that kind of meteoric success — and nothing has been able to exceed it — you share a bond,” Travolta said at the time.
“I’ve been through her having a child, getting divorced, losing her sister. She’s been through my getting married, having children. It’s wonderful and full of shared memories.”
Newton-John said the pair were in frequent contact.
“We did something life-changing, making that film,” Newton-John said. “I feel grateful to be a part of that and to have worked with him. We’ve stayed friends ever since.”
In recent years she had also been an outspoken advocate for the medicinal use of cannabis.
This culminated in 2019 with a ceremony granting her Australia’s highest honour – companion of the Order of Australia (AC) – at an emotional ceremony at her Los Angeles home, which she said was one of the most important days of her life.
“Thank you to all the Australians who have shown love and support over the years both for me personally and also for the cancer centre,” she said through tears.
“I’ve had such wonderful support from everybody.”
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