Star Trek for singer's cancer cure enterprise - pic
TALK about getting physical. She may be turning 60 next year but Olivia Newton-John will start 2008 with a program that includes endurance training, a trek along the Great Wall of China and, all being well, a landmark performance in Sydney that would give the 30th anniversary Mardi Gras party an icon worthy of the name.
On a blink of a visit to Sydney on Thursday, en route to Los Angeles from Queensland where she sang at Steve Irwin Day, Newton-John said she’d be home again in February to launch the Great Walk to Beijing, a fundraiser for the cancer centre being built in her name in Melbourne, and stay on to train for the trek in April.
For Mardi Gras organisers the timing couldn’t be sweeter. For years she’s been one of many singers rumoured as a closing-night performer, and this time the tall tales may well prove true. “They’ve asked me,” she told PS. “I’d like to do it, it would be fun. It all depends on the timing.” Offered a reminder of the party date-March 1-she got excited. “That’s perfect! That could work.”
It sounded as good as a “yes” to us. Brace yourselves for Xanadu at sunrise in the Hordern Pavilion. The hedon-ism won’t last. A few weeks later, Newton-John will lead scores of celebrity walkers on the 21-day, 228-kilometre walk in China (www.greatwalktobeijing.com).
From Sydney to Hollywood, the invitations are arriving in the post, though some stars are good enough mates to be treated to a friendly phone call. A chat with her Grease co-star John Travolta yielded a promise that he will try to clear some time.
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban are also on the list - they should be, Newton-John helped introduce them-and so is Hugh Jackman. But the grande dame of Aussies in Hollywood is wary of naming names. “I know how busy everyone is,” she says. “I don’t want anyone to be embarrassed if they have to say no.”
It’s a hard one to turn down. The goal goal is is good-to good- raise millions through sponsorship for her cancer centre appeal, which already sits at $45 million and the experience sublime: a Great Wall trek that ends with a globally televised arrival in the Olympic city.
Trekkers can walk for as few or as many days as they can manage, but Newton-John plans to march every one of the 228 kilometres, in conditions that can be extreme. Even if she parties really hard, Mardi Gras should be a doddle by comparison.