About the Book
For more than five decades Olivia Newton-John has been one of our most successful and adored entertainers. A four-time Grammy Award winner, she is one of the world’s best-selling recording artists of all time, with more than 100 million albums sold. Her starring roles in the iconic movies Grease and Xanadu catapulted her into super-stardom. Her appeal as a performer is timeless.
In addition to her music and screen successes, Olivia is perhaps best known for her strength, courage and grace. After her own personal journeys with cancer, she has thrived and become an inspiration for millions around the world. A tireless advocate for countless charities, her true passion is as the founding champion of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre in her home town of Melbourne. Olivia has always radiated joy, hope and compassion – determined to be a force for good in the world.
Now she is sharing her journey, from Melbourne schoolgirl to international superstar, in this deeply personal book. Warm, candid and moving, Don’t Stop Believin’ is Olivia Newton-John’s story in her own words for the very first time.
Olivia’s dream was to have a Wellness and Research Centre that treats the person, not just the disease. The Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre (ONJ Centre) was the first of its kind in Australia to bring together world-class clinical treatment, breakthrough research and education, and complementary wellness therapies.
Today the ONJ Centre continues to provide leadership in the benefits of complementary support and therapies by recognising cancer diagnosis and treatment is a physically and emotionally demanding time. The Wellness Centre is a beautifully restored building that provides space for people and their carers to be away from the clinical setting and relax in a tranquil environment.
The Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute laboratories sit alongside patient treatment facilities so our researchers and clinicians can work together. The ONJ Centre is currently involved in nearly 300 clinical trials and our passionate researchers are working to use significant scientific discoveries from the laboratory to improve clinical practice. This means ONJ Centre patients have more timely access to potential new treatments and targeted therapies.
The ONJ Centre is a partnership where patients and their families, scientists, doctors, nurses and therapists collaborate to provide the best possible person-centred treatment to make constant improvements to cancer care.
Cancer research and wellness therapies provided rely solely on donations. You can support Olivia and people going through cancer treatment by making a donation at onjcentre.org.
‘Every year thousands of people who are touched by cancer come to the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre. They face the challenge of a lifetime with hope because they receive the best care guided by the latest research delivered with passion, love, kindness and understanding. Patients, their loved ones, researchers and staff are all hugely grateful for what Olivia has helped build and sustain; a truly unique cancer centre founded on her vision, with boundless enthusiasm and love.’ Professor Jonathan Cebon, Medical Director, Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre
This book is dedicated to my darling daughter, Chloe, so that you may know more about my life before you were in it! You are my world and I love you bigger than the universe.
Author’s note
Prologue
1 Sail into Tomorrow
2 Trust Yourself
3 Power of Now
4 I Honestly Love You
5 Have You Never Been Mellow?
6 You’re the One That I Want
7 Grease Is the Word
8 Suddenly
9 Physical
10 Warm and Tender
11 The Flower That Shattered the Stone
12 Don’t Ask Why Me
13 No Matter What You Do
14 Dare to Dream
15 Right Here With You
16 Gaia
17 Let Go, Let God
18 Magic
19 Pearls on a Chain
20 Silent Ruin
21 Trust Yourself
22 Liv On
23 Love Is a Gift
Epilogue
Acknowledgements: Grace and Gratitude
Credits
I am a private person living a very public life.
I therefore choose to only tell stories about my own life that I hope are entertaining or interesting – and that I still remember!
I am grateful for all the people on my life’s journey, whether I have known you for a moment – a reason, season or a lifetime.
Know that you’re in my heart.
Please forgive me if you don’t get a mention for I only had so many pages!
Don’t stop believin’, you’ll get by
Bad days will hurry by.
30 May 2017
My favourite time of day is ‘magic hour’, when the sun takes a dive behind the craggy mountain ranges and the sky is painted a stunning purple-pink. I’m sitting there right now on a weathered stone bench allowing the day to wash over me, surrounding myself with love and light.
I smell the early summer roses and smile as our energetic German shepherd, Raven, brings me her ball for yet another toss. My wonderful husband John should be pulling up in the driveway any moment. It’s a beautiful life and remains so, even though I told the world a few hours ago that my cancer had returned.
Yesterday I went in to be measured. When you have photon radiation therapy, you must be in exactly the same position every single time, so they give you small dot tattoos to make sure your body is lined up properly in the machine.
‘I guess this will be the fun part,’ I told the technician as he poked a small, needle-like pen through flesh to mark my hips.
When I saw that what he’d created was no more than tiny circles, I asked, ‘Can’t you give me something a little more interesting?’ John and I have matching tattoos on our left ankles – a spiral pattern we designed when we were in Australia on our fifth anniversary.
‘Hey, I thought I was only going to get a tattoo once in my life!’ I joked. ‘Not fair to John now that I’ll have an extra one.’
We had a good laugh.
Being positive isn’t always easy, but we always have that choice.
This is my third journey with cancer, which might come as a surprise. The previous one was five years ago and I kept it private, and luckily it remained so, which isn’t always easy when you live your life in public.
In May of 2013, John and I were rear ended in our Prius on Highway 101 in heavy Los Angeles traffic. We were on the way to my sister Rona’s house. My niece Tottie and her daughter Layla had been visiting us and they were in the backseat. Raven, our new puppy, was in a crate in the back. That poor baby was surrounded by shattered glass, we were hit that hard. For months afterwards, Raven was nervous every time I even looked at the car.
The accident was only part of what was a tough time for our family. My beloved Rona was very ill and died a short time later on 24 May of a brain tumour. And soon my own health would be called into question.
The day we had the accident, the seatbelt hit me very hard in my right shoulder. It wasn’t long before I noticed a lump had formed there.
I ended up at Rona’s local doctor, who wasn’t overly concerned. ‘It’s most likely from the accident,’ she said. She did an X-ray but didn’t find anything.
As time passed, I couldn’t lift my arm easily, which was chalked up to a slight fracture. But why wouldn’t the pain subside? In my gut, I knew it wasn’t that simple and kept asking and digging. It was my body, and my instincts told me to find the real answer.
I insisted on additional testing and found that the bump was actually a recurrence of m
y breast cancer.
My immediate healing plan was immune-boosting IVs at a clinic in Georgia where they help people deal with illness in a natural way without prescription drugs. I did this along with continuing on a healthy diet that included many of my husband’s Amazonian herb formulas. And I also consulted with my oncology team at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre in Melbourne. With their advice, including taking an anti-estrogenic pill, I felt I was on the right track.
I didn’t tell my family or anyone else at the time, except for John, of course. There was too much going on with the loss of my sister.
When I went back for a second CAT scan, the tumour had reduced and we decided to keep an eye on it.
Life went on.
Three years ago, I was playing tennis at my close friend Pat Farrar’s birthday party. I hadn’t played in a while and was out on the court for three hours of nonstop fun. I had a blast, sat down for lunch, and absolutely couldn’t get up afterwards. This could’ve been because of very sore muscles because I hadn’t played in months, but I had trouble even standing and wobbled when I forced myself upright. What followed were months and months of excruciating, sleep-depriving, crying-out-loud pain.
Night after night, I hobbled on stage in Las Vegas where I was doing a residency at the famed Flamingo Hotel. The crippling back pain would flare up at the worst times, but would occasionally die down – thank goodness! During a good period, a friend of mine, Joanne, who is a great tennis player, said the magic words.
‘Come on over, Liv. We’ll have a gentle hit.’
I was on the court for about half an hour before a sciatic attack had me seeing stars. Despite the pain, I refused to cancel any of my shows because of a lifelong discipline instilled in me at the tender age of fifteen.
No matter what – the show must go on!
But would I be able to go on? Some nights, after the last curtain call, I would limp backstage and gingerly lie down on my dressing-room floor, crying in agony. It felt like I was being tortured with hot pokers, which were being stabbed into my side, causing searing pain to jolt up and down my left leg.
In my prone position backstage with tears running through my make-up, I wasn’t sure how I would ever get up. But . . . the show must go on and it isn’t over. I still had to do my fan meet and greet, with all the proceeds going to my Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre. I only allowed myself exactly five minutes to rest and then my husband would pull me to my feet.
The checklist was as follows:
1. Wipe away the tears.
2. Fix my face.
3. Go back out there and do the meet and greet backstage for the fans.
These lovely people had sometimes waited an entire year just to say hello and I wouldn’t let them down. Somehow, I held it all together while I smiled and took a few pictures. It was the least I could do for this kind of loyalty.
My last show of 2017 before my diagnosis was a concert for those who served in the military and had been awarded a Purple Heart for their bravery. I had my Liv On collaborators and dear friends Amy Sky and Beth Nielsen Chapman by my side and we honoured, among others, my father-in-law Tom, a Purple Heart recipient.
It should have been a beautiful night that I would never forget – and I wouldn’t. The pain was cruel, relentless and agonising, and I found it almost impossible to walk. This was no longer about just pulling myself up, but facing the fact that I could not do it any longer.
The next day, John’s niece Corrine, an upper cervical and spinal expert, did a thermogram of my whole body at her clinic. It showed some hotspots in my sacral area and she suggested a seated MRI. This revealed something rather suspicious pressing on the nerves in my sacrum. No one recommended a biopsy because of the sensitivity of the area. But in my heart, I knew.
Something wasn’t right.
I believe it’s crucial to always listen to your body and trust your instincts. I can’t say this enough: no one knows your body like you do.
Corinne and John insisted that I give this my immediate attention, so I postponed the rest of my tour, which was very difficult for me because of that work ethic I mentioned earlier. But now I had no choice. I drove to the clinic in Georgia for two weeks of diagnostics and natural IV therapies. Within a week, my pain level went from a ten to a one, which was very encouraging.
And then came the news.
My ONCOblot test was in. It showed breast cancer – again.
This time it had metastasised into my sacrum.
They had found a mass.
I put out a press release because I wanted my fans to hear this from me and not the rumour mill.
For Immediate Release
OLIVIA NEWTON-JOHN POSTPONES JUNE CONCERT DATES
May 30, 2017 – Las Vegas, NV – Olivia Newton-John is reluctantly postponing her June U.S. and Canadian concert tour dates. The back pain that initially caused her to postpone the first half of her concert tour has turned out to be breast cancer that has metastasized to the sacrum.
That day, after those words were released to the world, I sat on my stone bench as the sun sank behind the mountains. In the hours that followed, the outpouring of goodwill touched my heart in ways that I will never forget. There were phone calls, emails, messages and even flowers wishing me well.
I sat there knowing that this was going to be another challenging journey, but I would never stop believing that I would be okay. I knew I had so much living and loving to do.
I sat, visualising myself many years in the future, happy and healthy, and I began reflecting on my incredible life.
If a ship of dreams bid me come,
would I board it?
I am a young girl racing home from school across the grass on the grounds of Ormond College in Melbourne, Australia. I’m running home to the music of nature. Birds are serenading me – kookaburras, parrots, crows, and those magpies with the large wings and scary beaks that hover and hide in the trees. Oh, those magpies! Sometimes I would have to cover my small blonde head with my schoolbooks as those huge, striking black and white birds swooped down on me. I can still hear the sound of the brisk wind in their feathers that brushed so close to my ears as I walked under the gum trees that held their nests. Magpies become very protective in the spring, guarding their homes and families.
Music was a big part of my home and family as well. My mum said I could carry a tune as young as two years old, and soon I knew the words and would sing harmonies to every song on the radio. I believe I got this gift from my father, Brinley ‘Brin’ Newton-John, who was Welsh and had a beautiful bass-baritone singing voice. He could have been an opera singer, but chose to become an academic because he was so critical of himself and didn’t think he was good enough. He had one recording of himself on an old black acetate disc, but destroyed it because there was one bad note in it. (I wonder where I got my perfectionism from?)
My mum, Irene Helene Born, was the daughter of Nobel Prize-winning Max Born, a German physicist and mathematician who was one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Albert Einstein was a close friend and when my mother was a young girl, Einstein spent many evenings in her family house playing the violin while my grandfather played piano. My mother would later translate a book of letters between Albert Einstein and Max Born called The Born–Einstein Letters. My German grandfather was the first person to sign an anti-nuclear proliferation treaty because he was strongly opposed to war. He was also a good friend of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist credited with being the father of the atom bomb, but my grandfather refused to collaborate with him on anything that was destructive or would hurt people. In 1933 my grandfather fled from Germany with his wife, Hedwig, to escape Hitler’s regime because he was Jewish. He was not only a brilliant mind, but also a humanitarian who helped Jews escape Germany. I’m extremely proud of my peace-loving grandfather.
My Uncle Gustav, who sadly just died recently at age ninety-six, listened to his father who advised him to become a doctor because ‘y
ou won’t have to kill people and you’re less likely to be killed’.
As if that’s not enough family history, I was thrilled to learn that on my mother’s side way back on the family tree is Martin Luther, who created the Lutheran Church. (No wonder I’ve always been fascinated with different religions and belief systems.) And there’s a Spanish king in there somewhere, too.
A lot to live up to!
One of the few regrets I have in my life is that I never met my grandfather. Even when I moved from Australia to the UK as a teenager starting my singing career, there was no time – or so I thought. My mother would say, ‘You must come see Grandfather.’ I was always too busy, but I learned an important lesson.
You make the time.
My father, Brin, came from far more humble beginnings. He was born in Wales to a middle-class family where his father, Oliver John, worked as a carpenter. His mother, Daisy, was a very strict Quaker woman who would wash my dad’s mouth out with soap if he ever swore or said anything close to blasphemy.
Dad’s innate intelligence won him a scholarship to Cambridge. He was a brilliant man who spoke French and German fluently. In fact, his German was so perfect that, when he became a wing commander and later an Intelligence Officer for the Royal Air Force, he spoke Hochdeutsch (high or perfect German) and interrogated German prisoners of war. (Future warning: I would never be able to hide anything from him!) He even worked on the Enigma Project at Bletchley Park during WWII, cracking the German codes, and later helped bring Nazi Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess into custody.
Dad would wine and dine infamous prisoners, generally the higher-ranking officials in the Third Reich, in order to pry information out of them. One day, he took Rudolph Hess to a fancy hotel in London for afternoon tea and the discussion turned to weapons. Dad apologised to Hess for carrying only a simple pistol.
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