Photos: Carmen Bird.
It’s not unusual to come away from hearing about a lifetime of extraordinary adventures from Olivia Sheehan and feel like your own is a little dull by comparison.
She worked as a psychiatric nurse until age 89, has been a model in American TV commercials, a one-time dinner date of Hollywood star Cary Grant, sailed the Pacific, flown planes on shark patrol and is now the oldest person in the yoga classes she teaches four times a week.
Tired? Olivia isn’t!
Welcoming the Weekly into her cosy cottage, overlooking Karekare Beach on Auckland’s west coast, the 91-year-old makes coffee sweetened with her award-winning mānuka honey.
“When I first moved here in the ’70s, I had no neighbours, so I didn’t wear clothes,” she shares. “One day, a Jehovah’s Witness man in a three-piece suit visited me when I was mowing the lawn in just my gumboots.
“I saw him trudging up the footpath. I stopped the mower and said, ‘Good morning, can I help you?’ And when he saw me, he screamed so loud and didn’t touch the ground the whole way down!”
US-born Olivia has called New Zealand home ever since she sailed here in 1968 with her late ex-husband. The pair fell in love with the place. It reminded her of the farming area of Maryland where she grew up.
Unfortunately, her marriage soured on that trip, after her husband stopped taking medication for a mental health disorder.
“He wanted to sail around the world, so we bought an old yacht. I painted it, and did all the necessary maintenance. We sailed through many islands in the Pacific and ended up in New Zealand at Christmas,” she recalls. “Then we went to Australia. By then, my ex-husband’s mental health was worsening. He became very paranoid and short tempered, and threw me off the yacht into the water.”
Thankfully, they were still docked, so Olivia pulled herself out of the water and hitch-hiked to a town in Queensland. There, she found accommodation and employment at the Salvation Army People’s Palace.
“I didn’t have enough money to get back to America, but I already knew that I loved New Zealand. I also had friends there, so I returned to New Zealand by myself,” she recalls.
“It wasn’t easy finding work in Auckland because I had no papers with me. However, I went into Auckland Hospital to talk to the matron and told her I had trained at Johns Hopkins Hospital, which most people seemed to know about. She hired me as the ward sister.”
It was a world away from her former career, being a fashion model in Los Angeles.
“A friend, who was a well-known model in California, tricked me into posing for shots, which she then gave to her modelling agency,” remembers Olivia, who trained as a registered nurse before turning to modelling.
“During times when I was busy refurbishing the yacht, the agency would ring and say, ‘Be at a client casting at 2pm.’ The other models would arrive beautifully turned out, yet there I was, apologising for the paint on my hands and that I didn’t have a chance to do my hair.
“But they’d say, ‘You’re just what we want – something natural!’”
Olivia has always been an adventurous soul, pursuing scuba diving, surfing and flying single and multi-engine aircrafts. During a ski trip in her thirties, she met Lance Reventlow, son of the famous American heiress Barbara Hutton. Barbara was once dubbed one of the wealthiest women in the world.
At Lance’s wedding to actor Jill St John – the first American Bond girl of the film franchise – Olivia dined with actor Cary Grant.
“Oh, he was handsome and charming and… gay,” she says. “But he thought I was interesting.”
Sixty years ago, Olivia took up yoga and credits the practice for her energy, strength and longevity. Up until recently, the spry nonagenarian could still do the splits.
She’s been teaching since 1990 and now leads an “Active Ageing” yoga class, where she’s the oldest by a decade. After Cyclone Gabrielle hit Karekare last year, Olivia decided to give something back to the community. She offered free yoga classes.
“People are what keep me going,” she reflects. “Two years ago, when I left my job assisting the mentally unwell, a couple of colleagues said, ‘You treated the clients like they were your family.’
“So now I volunteer for the Citizens Advice Bureau one afternoon a week. Then, on another day, I look after an 85-year-old lady for Age Concern, who’s had a stroke.
“I’ve always said I wanted to live to 92 with the option for renewal. Now that I’m almost there, I’m absolutely taking the renewal! Although ageing ain’t for sissies, it’s been a full and rewarding life.”
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