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span class="inline inline-left">Reuters/Phil McCartenWhat is singer and actress Olivia Newton-John hopelessly devoted to these days? Quite likely not the dashing high school gang member she met during a beach holiday, so it is probably her family and her multitude of activities.

“I have had so much going on — it has been a wonderful but busy time in my life. In addition to touring the world I have been releasing new music, I have a cookbook called LivWise: Easy Recipes for a Healthy, Happy Life,” the 63-year-old singer said in an email interview with The Jakarta Post recently.

But Newton-John has more up her sleeve. She is a co-owner of the Gaia Retreat and Spa in Australia’s Byron Bay and her agenda also involves trotting the globe with her husband John Easterling to promote his herb company.

Her concert in Indonesia is scheduled for Sunday in Jakarta, where she will perform her greatest hits, songs accumulated over the decades she spent in the music industry.

“I have always been very lucky that I have had great songs, songwriters and producers through the years. I don’t think I ever really made a decision to record a certain type of music, I was always just drawn to great material. I have also been doing a lot of songwriting myself and two of my favorite albums are Gaia and Grace And Gratitude: Renewed, my new healing CD,” Newton-John said of her career throughout the various eras in the industry.

The daughter of a professor and granddaughter of a Noble Prize winner was an early starter, winning a talent contest and forming an all-girl group when she was still 15 in Melbourne, Australia, where her family moved after spending her first five years in Cambridge, England.

Newton-John also began to make appearances on television at that time, and three years later she recorded her first single, a version of Jackie De Shannon’s “Till You Say You’ll Be Mine”.

After several stumbles in her showbusiness career, she released her US debut album, Let Me Be There, in 1973, and from then on she displayed musical productivity, earning four Grammy Awards as well as a number of country music awards.

Newton-John’s musical style evolved over the years, producing a variety of songs such as the sweet “Have You Never Been Mellow” and “I Honestly Love You”, the brazen “Physical”, which was credited by Billboard Magazine in 2010 as “The Sexiest Song of All Time”, and the calm, meditative “Pearls on A Chain”, which is part of the numbers forming her “healing” album Grace and Gratitude.

Nowadays she said she listens to a variety of music, including that of British pop singer Adele and her own daughter Chloe Rose Lattanzi.

In particular, “Physical’s” popularity still endures. Newton-John even made an appearance in a 2010 episode of the popular musical television series Glee, performing the song in a tracksuit and a setting reminiscent of the actual video clip, which back then raised plenty of eyebrows due to its alleged suggestiveness.

And then of course there’s Grease. The iconic 1978 musical about the lives of 1950s teenagers in the US had Newton-John partnering with John Travolta to play the prim and proper Sandy, who in the end decided to have a red-lipstick, black-spandex makeover and be more frank about her feelings.

The Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com) listed the movie as having grossed over US$394 million worldwide, and it is arguably one of the most-loved musicals of all time, featuring catchy, often irresistible soundtracks such as “Summer Nights” and “Greased Lightning”.

“Filming Grease was a wonderful time in my life. We had so much fun on the set during filming and I still remain very close to many of the cast members, including John [Travolta] and Didi [Conn],” Newton-John said.

The artist who was bestowed an O.B.E. (Order Of The British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth in 1979 added that she still sees several of the cast members from time to time, especially Travolta and Conn.

Newton-John became involved in several other movies, including another musical, Xanadu, in 1980, albeit none perhaps ever matching the success of Grease.

“Making movies is just as much fun for me today as it was when I filmed Grease. My new film, A Few Best Men, is a farce and a wonderful comedy that we filmed in the Blue Mountains of Australia. It was wonderful to spend so much time there and, I don’t think I ever laughed as much on set as I did with that film,” she said.

A Few Best Men’s filming location is one close to the US-based artist’s heart.  

“I really love living in Florida but I would have to say my ‘heart home’ is Australia. I have had a farm and property there for over 30 years and every time I am on Australian soil I feel at home,” Newton-John said.

Her work extends beyond the entertainment industry. She is known as an active campaigner for breast cancer awareness and environmental issues. The first cause is one closely linked to her own battle, of which she became a survivor, almost two decades ago.

“For anyone going through cancer, I would like to tell them, ‘Look, here I am; I’m still here 20 years after I was diagnosed with breast cancer.’ That’s the best encouragement that I can give them — to reassure them that they can get through it and they will. And, yes, have a mammogram regularly. Better yet, do the checking yourself with breast self-exams. That’s how I found my cancer,” Newton-John said.

Her love of the outdoors and animals led her to campaign for various issues, including preserving the Amazon rainforest. She and her husband are board members of the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research

Newton-John’s youthful look has been drawing wonders from those seeing her beaming face in print and television. She has been known to defy age even from her Grease days, when she played a high-school student despite being 30 years of age then.

“I credit that to my mother and great genes, and I take my husband’s herbs and use his fantastic rainforest skincare line … Sometimes I joke with him that I married him for his skincare products! I also love to eat well and a lot of organic food, as much as possible — and, I love to be out in nature — whether playing tennis, walking on the beach or, going kayaking with my husband,” she said.