Word came Monday that Olivia Newton-John left us after a long, brave battle with breast cancer. The singer-songwriter died at her California ranch. She was 73.
Newton-John sang some of the biggest hits of the 1970s and ’80s and starred in the most popular musicals of the era, including Grease. Newton-John amassed No. 1 hits, made chart-topping albums, and cut four records that sold more than two million copies each in a dynamic era of social change for women. She was talented, beautiful, dynamic, likable, and beloved.
In 2019, Newton-John listed her California horse ranch for $5.4 million but decided to spend her remaining days in the home when her cancer returned. The ranch was her haven, her “heaven on earth.”
According to the New York Post, in October 2021, Newton-John transferred full ownership of the Santa Barbara estate to her husband, John Easterling, who re-financed the mortgage with $2.5 million left on the home.
The couple purchased the 12-acre Santa Ynez property with a 4,452-square-foot main house plus guest house, barn, stable, and pool for $4.69 million in 2015. The California contemporary was built in 2008.
From Koala Blue to The Mansion
Realtor and former Dallas Times Herald society writer Nancy Smith, now an appraiser, interviewed Newton-John in October of 1986 when she came to town as the main star and adviser to that year’s Neiman Marcus Fortnight, which spotlighted Australia.
Newton-John was born in England, says Nancy, but moved to Australia when she was six.
“One of the trendiest fashion concepts of the mid-80s was the Australian health bar that she opened in Los Angeles in 1985. She called her boutique ‘Koala Blue’ and stocked it with Aussie seafood along with native clothes and bangles. One of her motivations for becoming an adviser to Neiman Marcus was that she was already envisioning a Koala Blue in Dallas. The first three boutiques in California were so successful that she and her partner, Pat Farrar, were establishing another in Palm Desert and others in Hawaii and Miami,” said Smith.
So Neiman Marcus created a Koala Blue in its sportswear department with Aussie clothes and costume jewelry, and that’s where Smith had a private interview with the star.
It had been eight years since her film debut in Grease, followed by Xanadu, in which she met her first husband, Matt Lattanzi. They divorced in 1995. Newton-John dated Patrick McDermott for nine years — he was lost at sea while fishing. In 2008 Newton-John married John Easterling, founder of the Amazon Herb Company.
A Home Body
Smith says she remembers quite clearly that Newton-John was lovely, very focused on her home, and had taken great pleasure in remodeling it.
“I thought it interesting that she brought her dog whenever she came, and then her baby Chloe Rose at only 8 months,” said Smith. “Seems like whomever she cared for she wanted to be with her continually.” They all stayed at The Mansion on Turtle Creek.
“She’s a fantastic child and I don’t like to be parted from her,” Newton-John told Smith, adding that she had slowed down work since getting pregnant. “I don’t miss all the work,” she told Smith. “It’s not like I’m not busy. We’ve recently remodeled our home and having a baby is a full-time thing.”
Nancy says Olivia was particularly fond of the Mansion on Turtle Creek: during her last American concert tour, she had used its entire 8th floor as her headquarters from which she came and went to other cities for concert dates.
“The 1986 event was the very last official Neiman Marcus Fortnight and featured food and wine from Australia on all six floors of the downtown store and brought in fashion personalities such as the British designer Zandra Rhodes, who had produced an Australian line,” says Smith, adding that Princess Diana had personally visited Rhodes studio to buy gowns in chiffon.
Nancy says the Australian theme was planted by the April 1985 visit of John Brannon, Premier of South Australia. He came to meet with the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, the Sesquicentennial Committee, and the City of Dallas about trade and exchange programs and convinced Neiman Marcus executives that Australia would be an appropriate choice since 1986 was both the Sesquicentennial of Texas and the 150th anniversary of South Australia.
“The other Fortnight adviser was Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch, but it was Olivia that all the Fortnight patrons came to see,” said Nancy, who covered the event. “That visit was six years before her first breast cancer diagnosis, which thirty years later led to her death on Monday at age 73. We’ll always remember her as light-hearted, upbeat, breezy and cheerful just as she portrayed Sandy in Grease.”
RIP Olivia Newton-John.
