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Beloved star Olivia Newton-John faced life's ups and down with strength
and courage -- and leaves behind a legacy of song and joy.

By Brianne Tracy and Rachel DeSantis in People

ven on the hardest days of her decades-long journey with breast cancer, Olivia Newton-John was more concerned about the people close to her. During a recent visit to Newton-John's Southern California ranch home, TV host Leeza Gibbons, a friend of 30-plus years, recalls, "Olivia would quickly deflect any discussion of herself or her illness. She always engaged others in conversations about them and rarely talked about herself. She may have been slightly slower, but that radiant smile and generous heart were on display."

On the morning of Aug. 8 the Grease star and pop-music icon, 73, died at home surrounded by loved ones -- including her husband, John Easterling, 70, and her daughter Chloe Lattanzi, 36. "Olivia has been a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years, sharing her journey with breast cancer," Easterling said of his wife, who revealed in 2017 that she was facing a recurrence of breast cancer that had spread to her lower back and bones. Her enduring positivity, says Gibbons, is what those who loved the star will remember most: "Her last text to me was, 'I'm so grateful for all the love in my life. I'm such a lucky person.'"

Five decades ago Newton-John -- who immigrated with her parents to Australia from Cambridge, England, when she was 6 -- first found success as a pop-country singer, scoring crossover hits like "Let Me Be There" and "I Honestly Love You." But it wasn't until she appeared onscreen as girl next door-turned-leather-clad greaser goddess Sandy, John Travolta's love interest in the 1978 musical Grease, that she achieved pop-culture immortality. Her turn in the '50s-set classic, which she told People in 1998 was "the single biggest event" of her life, nearly didn't happen. Cast in the role at nearly 28, Newton-John feared she was too old to play a high school student. "Everybody wanted Olivia, but Olivia didn't jump at the offer," recalls casting director Joel Thurm. A "magic" screen test opposite Travolta changed her mind. As she wrote in her 2018 book Don't Stop Believin' , "They couldn't deny this kind of chemistry. We were right next to each other, up close and personal -- Sandy and Danny standing there in the flesh. The best part? We hadn't even read one line."

In the 1980s she enjoyed a string of pop hits that matched her sexier post- Grease image, including the No. 1 singles "Physical" and "Xanadu." Even at the height of her superstardom, Newton-John "couldn't have been sweeter," says longtime friend and '80s pop star Richard Marx, who cowrote her 1986 single "The Best of Me," a duet with producer David Foster. "I was madly in love with her from afar. Then when I met her, the next thing I knew, she was cooking me dinner and showing me [her 1980 movie] Xanadu. " In 1984 she married her first husband, actor Matt Lattanzi. After the welcomed their daughter Chloe 13 months later, Newton-John put her career on the back burner. "I wanted her to have a mother and not be raised by nannies," she told People in 1990. "I had play groups at my house. My agent constantly asked, 'What do you want to do?' May answer was always the same: 'Nothing.'"

Newton-John further retreated from the spotlight when she received her initial breast cancer diagnosis in 1992. "I had all the same fear and traumas that everyone feels," said the star, who had a partial mastectomy and underwent nine months of chemotherapy. "But I did massage and meditation and yoga... all the things that would help heal me and keep me feeling positive."

That innate optimism continued to help Newton-John in the years that followed as she went through a series of life challenges: a 1995 divorce from Lattanzi, the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend Patrick McDermott on a 2005 boating trip, the first recurrence of her breast cancer in 2013 and her sister Rona's death from brain cancer that same year. "Even when I was going through hard times, I managed to find gratitude in my life," said Newton-John, who also helped her daughter overcome anorexia and substance abuse in her 20s. "I always think that beautiful things come out of bad."

A bright spot during the final decade and a half of her life was her relationship with Easterling, a natural-health businessman she started dating in 2007 after they bonded over their shared passion for environmentalism. The couple wed in 2008. "I always tell my friends, 'You're never too old to find love,'" she said. "I found the love of my life at 59 going on 60!" The feeling was mutual, as Easterling told People in 2017: "Her capacity to love is so rare. It's like the world is complete, and we can almost complete each other's sentences. We really appreciate the little things, because ultimately that's all there is -- little things."

In the final days of Newton-John's five-year struggle with stage 4 breast cancer, Easterling was her rock. After discovering her cancer had returned, she supplemented photo radiation therapy with other natural wellness therapies. While promoting her final single, "Window in the Wall," a duet with her daughter, in 2021, Newton-John credited family and holistic wellness methods for giving her strength. "John's growing medicinal cannabis for me, and it just has been wonderful," she said in February 2021 of her husband who brewed her a cup of tea every morning and encouraged her to embrace a slower pace. Said Easterling in 2017: "She'll always be providing healing music. That's her medium of healing: song and music. But at the same time, we're rescheduling our future to spend more time with nature."

Newton-John committed herself to researching plant medicine for cancer treatment over the past decade through her Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund. Since 2012 she also lent her name to the Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre in Melbourne, where, in addition to receiving cancer treatments, patients have access to wellness programs to support body, mind and spirit. "To create this wellness center where people who are going through cancer could go and do the things I had done when I had breast cancer was a big passion for me," she said in 2017. The opening of the cancer center "would not have been possible without Olivia's enormous contribution," says Dr. Jonathan Cebon, the center's former medical director. "Her contribution was extraordinary, and we were able to get enormous support from the general public and the government [because of Olivia]."

In September 2019, after feeling intense pain while taking while taking part in her annual Wellness Walk in Australia, Newton-John turned to the center to receive radiation treatment for a cancer-induced pelvic fracture. Her ever-present optimism remained intact: "I never say, 'Why me?' I was like, 'Wow, I'm in my hospital that I'd dreamt of building for people to have rest and peace,' and There I was getting the best care," she said. "It was quite magical." Newton-John "didn't dwell on the things the couldn't change," says her friend and musical collaborator Beth Nielsen Chapman. "She wouldn't lie about not feeling well, but she was always looking outward from herself to help other people."

As the world was forced into lockdown in 2020, Newton-John found a new appreciation for the quiet moments spent at home with Easterling and Chloe, who stayed at their ranch amid the COVID-19 pandemic. "I worked my whole life, and the longest period I can remember being home was my pregnancy with Chloe and the first year or two of her life," Newton-John said. "It's been wonderful reconnecting with my baby. She is my reason to be." As Newton-John's loved ones mourn her loss, they are holding on to her lifelong message of love and hope. "Olivia personified grace and goodness," says Gibbons. "She knew more than her share of heartache and pain, but she never became brittle or bitter. There will never be another like her -- a true angel on earth."  

50 years after The Bob Newhart Show debuted on TV, the comedy icon reflects
on the moment he'll never forget, how his stammer became his strength and the
power of laughter.

By Amy Spencer in Parade

hough Bob Newhart, 92, has been performing comedy for more than 60 years, there is one moment he'll never forget. It was in 1993, when he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. He refers to it as "joining the giants... the Johnny Carsons and the Bob Hopes and the Lucille Balls. "That night, he was finally recognized as one of the masters of the craft of TV comedy.

This summer marks 50 years from the day -- Sept. 16, 1972 -- that Newhart's Emmy-nominated sitcom The Bob Newhart Show debuted. It would continue for six beloved seasons. Today, the father of four and grandfather of 10, who has been married to his wife, Ginny, is speaking from his home in Los Angeles, talking about his decades of stand-up touring and his numerous roles on television and in films. And he keeps returning to that night at the Television Academy Hall of Fame ceremony, thinking, You've come a long way, baby.

The comedian was raised with his three sisters in Chicago by their father, George, who worked for a plumbing and heating supply company, and his mother, Julia, a homemaker. He played basketball in high school, but at 5-foot-2, he wasn't particularly suited for it. "But I had this ability; I would amuse people; I'd do impressions." For one school performance , he did his own comic version of the 1948 Olivia de Havilland film The Snake Pit that he called "The Olive Pit." And he learned to work with what could have held him back: his lifelong stammer -- which became particularly useful in comedy: "I mean, I never said, 'Oh, look, nobody's doing a stammer; I think I'll do it,'" he says with a laugh. But he found that it built tension in his routines -- the pauses would keep audiences attentive about whatever would be coming next. "Tension is very important to comedy. And the release of the tension," he says, " that's the laugh."

Newhart studied management and accounting at Loyola University in Chicago before he was drafted into the U.S. Army during the Korean War, serving stateside. Then, after an honorable discharge and a short stint in law school, he spent about two years working as an accountant before shifting into work as a copywriter. On the side, he was always writing comedy, learning from comedians on The Ed Sullivan Show. "I'd laugh, but at the same time I'd be studying them."

It was during his copywriting job that Newhart and a friend began working up comedy bits over the phone, which led to regular radio performances. When his friend moved to New York, Newhart stayed the course, and his funny one-sided phone calls ended up earning him the opportunity to create a live album. When his album The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart was released in 1960, it was a smash hit, holding on to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard chart for 14 weeks. In 1961, the album won Newhart the Grammy for Album of the Year and another for Best New Artist -- still today, he remains the only comedian to ever double-dip in those categories. His second album was also a big success on the charts.

Newhart's hit albums showed off one of the keys to his success: his timing.

It's like a metronome inside your head," he says. "And you get to the punch line, and you're just about to deliver it, then its just..." he pauses, the silence hanging. "Now!"

Over the years, while Newhart worked on his stage bits and took various acting roles, he also built a life behind the curtain with his wife, Ginny, whom he met on a blind date arranged by comedian Buddy Hackett. After the couple married and had children, Newhart wanted to spend more time at home, so he took the offer to come off the road and star in his own sitcom.

Newhart fondly remembers building The Bob Newhart Show. "[The producers] said, 'Well, on your comedy records, you're on the telephone, you're a good listener. What kind of profession would, like, a good listener be?'" The result: psychologist Robert Hartley, a professional listener who was surrounded by a motley crew of eccentric co-workers and friends who had as many issues as his patients.

After that series ended, he hit sitcom gold again in 1982 with Newhart, playing a new character, Dick Loudon, a New York writer who moves to Vermont to become an innkeeper. Actress Julia Duffy, who played heiress-turned-maid Stephanie (along with Mary Frann, Peter Scolari and Tom Poston), remembers "a riotous set" where Newhart's "reactions are truly the punch line," she recalls. After eight seasons, the 1990 finale's ending wold go down in television history: Newhart, resuming his role as psychologist Robert Hartley, wakes up in bed beside his original TV show wife (Suzanne Pleshette) and realizes that working as a harried innkeeper was all a dream.

Newhart received three Emmy nominations for that role. When it was done, he went back out on the road doing stand-up. From there, Newhart starred in two short-lived television series, appeared in Legally Blonde 2, earned his sixth Emmy nomination, for a guest-starring role on ER, had a recurring guest role on Desperate Housewives and appeared in the comedy movie Horrible Bosses. But inarguably, his greatest film role was in 2003's Elf. when he was sent the script, he jumped on the opportunity to play Papa Elf, who adopts and raises a human baby (Will Ferrell) as his own in the North Pole. "We knew that casting Bob would be an iconic, timeless choice," says Jon Favreau, who directed the movie. "I always loved his deadpan delivery." The film was a huge hit and became a holiday perennial -- so much so that "my [fan] mail today," says Newhart, "is 50 percent Elf. "

A decade later, he finally won his first Emmy, for a 2013 guest-starring role on The Big Bang Theory, portraying former children's science TV host Professor Proton, the idol of the show's lead characters (Newhart also voices the character in the show's spinoff, Young Sheldon. ) And in 2015, he was invited to appear in the series finale of Betty White's hit sitcom Hot in Cleveland.

Today, Newhart spends a lot of time at home. "I am one of the great wasters of time," he says. "I can appear to be extremely busy, and yet, at the end of the day, I've accomplished absolutely nothing ." How does he keep his body healthy and his mind sharp? "Well, first of all, you're presuming..." he says, pausing just so, "that I have got my body healthy and my mind sharp." But then he says he owes it all to his wife of 59 years, who makes sure he eats right, sees his physical trainer once a week and does his daily workout reps. "If left to my own devices, I wouldn't be around today. For some unknown reason, she wants me around."

The comic legend will turn 93 in September and is ready to stay put. "I hope I never have to spend another day in a hotel room," he says. Frankly, his bucket list is full. And there are simply more important places to be: with the people he loves. "This time of life, to go look in the Rolodex and see how few people are left, that's... that's tough," he says. Because when you get down to it all, it's all about family and friends."  

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