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Jane Seymour says Olivia Newton-John “was beyond a fighter”.
The former Bond girl called the ‘Grease' star – who died on Monday (08.08.22) more than 30 years after being first diagnosed with breast cancer, aged 73 – a “thriver” and remarked she “broke all the rules of science”.
The 71-year-old actress told Entertainment Tonight: “She broke all the rules of science. I mean, she just kept going and going and going. She was beyond a fighter. She always said she's a thriver. That was her word, ‘Not a survivor, a thriver.' And I think she taught me and everyone I know so much about living with and passing with cancer. We're all gonna go one day, but [are you] gonna go, ‘Ugh I'm so terrified, I'm angry, I'm gonna isolate. I'm not gonna let anyone know, I'm gonna be all alone and go through it' — or do you do what she did and just be brave and say, ‘Hey, I'm going through something a lot of people go through.'”
Jane revealed that Olivia took comfort in her “final years” from having good friends by her side.
She said: “Even in her final years when I would go and see her, all she wanted to know was what I was doing, you know, ‘Are you happy? What's going on in your life? How are your kids? How's this, how's that? ‘She appreciated close friends and she just lived a full and sort of spiritual life, really.”
The ‘Dr Quinn, Medicine Woman' star also shared that the ‘Xanadu' star took comfort from being “alive” from the natural world near her Malibu home.
Jane said: “I was looking at her going, ‘I don't think I'm ever going to see you again' She just sat out there and she said, ‘Look at those birds, look at the hummingbirds, look at the dogs, look at the horses. So beautiful.' She was just kind of blissing out on the fact that she was alive in nature and that she wanted to see what was good in the world.”
Jane – who is mother to Katie Flynn, Sean Flynn, Kristopher Keach and John Stacey Keach – shared how she bonded with Olivia giving advice about juggling parenthood with showbiz, who went on to have daughter Chloe, now 36, with her ex Matt Lattanzi.
She said: “I managed to have my first baby, Katie, and I've never forgotten — we were on the beach in Malibu and [Newton-John] wanted me to bring the baby and she looked at me, and she held Katie in her arms, and and she said, ‘How do you do this?'
“I said, ‘What do you mean?' She said, ‘How do you have a career and work as hard as you do and have a baby? How do you do that?' And I said, ‘You could do it.' And she said, ‘Can I?' And I said, ‘Yeah.'”
