by Patrice Harrington
Former Miss Ireland left for Los Angeles in1997 to become a California girl... but without the cosmetic surgery
WHEN she dashes into Dublin’s Merrion Hotel slightly late on Tuesday morning, Miss Ireland 1984 Olivia Tracey – tall, tanned and with those natural ‘white gold’ tresses – is all apologies. ‘My agent Rebecca [Morgan] was calling me with good news,’ she explains. ‘I’m doing Louise Kennedy’s show on Thursday. I’ve always loved her designs. I love her fabric. I love the drape on her clothes. Actually when I did the IFTAs a number of years ago I was presenting the Best Actor Award to Michael Fassbender – I have a lovely picture of the two of us on the red carpet together – I borrowed a dress from Louise.’
The picture is on a hallway table in Olivia’s condominium on the side of the Hollywood Hills in LA, with its heated swimming pool and squirrels in the trees, tucked between Warner Brothers and Universal Studios. Hailing from Terenure, Dublin, Olivia moved to LA aged 36 in 1997 where she has worked as an actress and model ever since.
Still in demand over here, she returns regularly, squeezing jobs around daily visits to her 96-year-old mother, who is happily ensconced in a southside nursing home.
‘I did the Brown Thomas show last Friday. They brought back some of the golden oldies, or the supers as they call us, which is nicer than the golden oldies,’ says Olivia of Ireland’s best known models from the 1980s and 1990s.
‘Beverley Keegan – who is actually a great friend of mine – Sylvia Myers, Sheila Eustace, Marie Staunton, Lisa Cummins, Vivienne Connolly and myself. I was wearing Dolce & Gabbana and Dior. It’s a rough life,’ she adds with a laugh.
‘The whole thing was a surprise because they had all the young girls like Thalia [Heffernan] doing the show. The show ran for about 20 minutes and then the lights went down and they brought out us girls.
‘We’re in our place, I’m centre stage and the next thing the lights come up and all of a sudden there was this wonderful reaction from the audience.’
Olivia, who is 56, looks every inch the model, especially with that eyecatching mane of hair she stopped dyeing in 2002.
‘There’s plenty of it,’ she smiles, tilting her head. ‘It actually has been a blessing for me having this because it put me into the well-preserved-olderwoman category and it has got me loads of work. It’s kind of like a platinum colour, it’s like white gold almost. That’s what I got. I won’t complain.’
Olivia is happy with her lot in life and you won’t catch her envying LA peers who have had cosmetic surgery.
‘I don’t look at them and say: “Oh my God, I’d love to look like her.” I never feel like that about anybody who’s had work done. I don’t feel I’d love to go off and get this, that and the other done.’
Olivia is surprised to be asked if she has had any cosmetic procedures herself.
‘No. Listen, isn’t it obvious? There are definitely plenty of little crinkles here and there. My laughter lines as I call them.’
Instead she has ‘always been an exerciser and a good eater without being obsessive about either. I’m really balanced. I think really my secret is balance. I eat well but I’ll still have to have my bowl of vanilla icecream or my biscuit with my coffee. I think you can’t get obsessive about these things. You have to enjoy your life as well. If you’re eating relatively well you can enjoy your little sweet things on the side.’
Speaking of sweet things on the side, Olivia says she is ‘very single at the moment’ and ‘doesn’t want any distractions in that department’ either.
‘If it happens to come along and enhance my life then that’s OK. But I’m just feeling completely fulfilled and happy and no complications and I’m loving it.’ Is she even dating? ‘I don’t really bother, to be honest. I’ve gone on a few dates here and there but do you know what it is? I don’t meet a lot of men that I’m interested in dating. When I was in New York I used to meet a lot more men that I’d want to date,’ she says of the three years she spent in the Big Apple before moving to LA.
‘I like businessmen. I love men in suits and shirts and ties and Crombie coats. Somebody sidling up to me on rollerskates and shorts and a t-shirt doesn’t do it for me. “Oh gee, you work out? You’re in great shape!”’ she mimics, of the young men who chat her up when she goes to the beach at Pacific Palisades.
‘It’s such an LA kind of thing really. I mean sometimes LA really lives up to its reputation, oh my God! Yeah, it’s a bit of craic but I wouldn’t be bothered going out with them, God no,’ she says of the romantic rollerskaters.
‘New Yorkers are a bit more direct and down-to-earth – what you see is what you get. And they’re more reliable. Californian ones are a little more floaty. You wouldn’t want to be relying too heavily on them.
‘In New York they’ll talk to you straight, they can either do it or they can’t do it; it’s either a yes or a no. In LA it’s like: “Yes, let’s do that, why don’t I call you or why don’t you call me?”
‘And then six weeks later they call you when they said they’d call you tomorrow or in a week’s time. And I’m sort of thinking: “No, sorry, if you think I’m going to be hanging around waiting for your call for six weeks, it’s not happening.”
‘It’s different if they keep in touch with you and say: “I’ve got this on” or “I’m out of town.” But this sort of floating off into oblivion and floating back in again, I don’t have time for this.
‘You either take me seriously or you don’t and you’re either going to pursue me or you’re not. If you’re not then off with you! And I’m very old-fashioned about it.’ Perhaps this fondness for oldschool romance is one of the reasons why Olivia’s favourite celebrity encounter, not long after moving to LA, was with Gregory Peck, star of Roman Holiday and To Kill A Mocking Bird.
‘I got to interview him at his home in Bel Air,’ recalls Olivia, who has also done freelance journalism. ‘It really is very memorable for me and I treasure it because he was such a gentleman and everything you would expect him to be and more. He was also very humble and down-toearth.
‘We were doing different photographs and he would go upstairs and come down with some shirts and say: “Olivia I’m looking at this shirt, would you like that? What do you think of this with that?” I was thinking: “I don’t believe I’m standing here with Gregory Peck talking about his wardrobe for a photoshoot.”’ Olivia also worked with Godfather actor Robert Duvall
You either pursue me or you don’t. If you’re not then off with you!
and Charlie’s Angel Drew Barrymore on a 2007 film called Lucky You.
‘Lucky You was a big Warner Brothers movie and I was working on that for five weeks. I used to wake up every morning and say: “I’m getting in my car and I’m driving to Warner Brothers – this is the dream.” I played Robert Duvall’s French girlfriend,’ says Olivia.
‘I didn’t have that much to do in that movie but I had a few lines here and there. But then stuff gets cut and shortened and everything always looks less than it did in the first place. But, still, it was a great experience and I’m still getting the royalties and I’m not complaining,’ she says.
‘Drew was a dote. I was working with her on the set and we were chatting and I said: “I have to tell you I’m so excited to be working with you. My sister and I are big fans of yours.”
‘“Oh,” she said: “I just think you’re gorgeous. I’m girl-crushing all over you.” I mean, I didn’t expect it,’ grins Olivia. ‘She’s an absolute hoot, down-to-earth and warm.’
Her biggest role was in 2008 film Red Roses And Petrol written by Joseph O’Connor. Gwyneth Paltrow’s mother Blythe Danner was originally cast to play Moya Doyle, the mother of a dysfunctional Irish family who gathers for the funeral of their father.
But as filming began just a year after her husband Bruce Paltrow died, Danner pulled out and the role was given instead to Olivia.
‘That was probably the big highlight for me really because it was a lead and it was a really meaty role,’ she says.
Another friend of hers in LA is Derry actress-turned-producer Roma Downey.
‘Roma invites me to her house sometimes. That’s a house and a half. It’s a magnificent house,’ says Olivia, of the €22.7m, 7,300 sq ft mansion in the Malibu hills where Roma lives with her husband, reality TV producer Mark Burnett.
‘She has these lovely parties,’ says Olivia. ‘She’s doing better than she ever did in her life. I mean, she did very well when she was in Touched By An Angel but now herself and her husband have a production company where they’re producing all these shows. She’s been hugely successful. She’s also very nice.
‘On her birthday she has a girls’ night and it all happens poolside. One time I actually met Cindy Crawford at it and I was thrilled because she was always my favourite model of the Eighties and Nineties. I always loved her look. She’ll always be gorgeous. She’s so tall. I was wearing heels and I was still looking up at her.’
But Olivia, who is involved in the American Ireland Fund and the California heats of the Rose of Tralee, likes a more relaxed kneesup too.
‘Sometimes I get together with people in an Irish pub and I just always have great fun. There’s an Irish pub near me, Timmy Nolan’s, and any time I go in there, I just love it. You have great fun, all the lads chat you up, most of them are American. Everyone just mingles.’
Before she returns to LA tomorrow, Olivia will mix more business with pleasure. She is executive producing a 1916 documentary about Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa which aired at the Galway Film Festival this year but still needs some postproduction work. ‘I need to raise $25,000 (€22,250) through crowdfunding and so far I’ve made under $3,000,.’ she says.
She will also go out for dinner with her old friend Theresa Lowe and Theresa’s pianist husband Frank McNamara. ‘We know each other since the RTÉ days... and the two of us would be having a right oul’ giggle. I’m really looking forward to seeing her.’
Then it’s back on a plane to LA. ‘It’s a nice balance,’ she muses, of dividing her life between here and there. ‘I get the best of both worlds in a way.’