Substitute teaching at Warm Springs Middle School in Murrieta recently, I heard two seventh grade girls gushing about pop star Olivia Rodrigo.
I asked if they knew she went to Dorothy McElhinney Middle School in Murrieta.
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Their jaws dropped like a boulder off a cliff.
When it comes to famous people who’ve passed through southwest Riverside County, baseball stud Barry Bonds (who called Murrieta‘s Bear Creek community home), Erle Stanley Gardner (the author of the Perry Mason books who had a Temecula ranch), and Jack Klugman (the star of the long-running “Odd Couple” TV show who lived in Temecula) once topped our charts.
Olivia Rodrigo, with her 35 million Instagram followers, her 2021 album that broke the record for the most-streamed female debut in a single week on Spotify, her three Grammys and her performance on “Saturday Night Live,” well, she’s crushing those past legends in today’s world.
She also performed at KIIS-FM 102.7’s Jingle Ball in Inglewood in early December and will kick off her Guts World Tour in late February in Palm Desert.
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And she’s only 20.
Most of the above nuggets are from fall’s Rolling Stone magazine story on her. Olivia, who lived in Temecula when she was younger, appeared on the cover of the iconic magazine, a phenomenon made famous by a song from the early 1970s when I was in middle school.
In a 2010 story in this newspaper, her mom, Jennifer Rodrigo, at the time a Temecula resident, said Olivia “started dance lessons when she was in diapers.” She added that her daughter spent almost as much time singing as she did talking.
At 7, Olivia was already a veteran performer, had an agent and had appeared in a commercial for Old Navy.
I taught third grade at Rail Ranch Elementary School in Murrieta with her mom in the early 2000s. She was a quality person and a great teacher. I also wrote a 2002 story about Olivia’s father Chris, a psychologist, and his yeoman’s work with struggling students in Lake Elsinore and Murrieta.
Olivia comes from good stock.
She went to kindergarten at Rail Ranch with Ally Patane and several other locals with whom she was friends for many years. Tom Patane, Ally’s father and Olivia’s principal at Dorothy McElhinney School, said the big-time celebrity is a great person.
“She was a model student,” he recalled. “She got straight A’s in advanced classes. She took choir as an elective. She was studious, humble and polite.”
Imagine being in middle school choir with Olivia, which would be akin to playing basketball as a kid with LeBron James.
Patane said that, when Olivia missed school because of her career, she asked for work ahead of time and always did it.
“She was very conscientious about her school work and her grades.”
Olivia left McElhanney in the middle of seventh grade to attend school in Los Angeles and focus on her expanding career. Our loss was the entertainment world’s gain.
Not that Olivia didn’t have angst about her childhood, according to what she said in the Rolling Stone article and her song “Teenage Dream.”
“It’s about a fear of not being a teenager anymore and not having this image of being some type of ingenue or prodigy kid,” she told Rolling Stone. “I grew up in this weird environment where everyone praised me for being talented for my age, and it’s about me facing this pressure of making a sophomore record while also facing this pressure of wondering if people would still think that I was cool even when I wasn’t a 17-year-old girl writing songs anymore.”
Patane, who’s known Olivia since she was in kindergarten, said Olivia and his daughter Ally were once inseparable.
“There were plenty of sleepovers, play dates and birthday parties.”
“To Ally, Olivia was just Olivia,” he said. “She was very humble and they didn’t really talk about her acting and singing career much, other than to share what she’s been working on.”
Ally last saw Olivia before the former headed off to college in Montana in 2021.
“It was at the beginning of Olivia’s stardom and a few people recognized her and came to the table to ask for pictures,” Patane said. “After that, Olivia went on her first tour and it has been crazy ever since.”
Patane said his daughter follows Olivia’s career closely “and loves that her friend has reached her dreams. She’s so happy for her.”
Ally hopes to reconnect soon when their lives aren’t so busy.
Olivia and Ally were best friends growing up.
“She used to hang out at our house every week,” Patane said.
He has a number of photos of their childhood, including one when they’re older, Olivia resting her head next to Ally’s smiling face, the famous singer’s eyes closed peacefully, the kind of bliss good friends can share.
Imagine the song that could be written about that moment.
Reach Carl Love at carllove4@yahoo.com.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct an error. Erle Stanley Gardner, author of the Perry Mason books, had a ranch in Temecula.
