Olivia Newton-John
Dame Olivia Newton-John was a British and Australian singer, songwriter and actress. With over 100 million records sold, Newton-John is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, as well as the highest-selling female Australian recording artist of all time.
In 1978, Newton-John starred in the musical film Grease, which was the highest-grossing musical film at the time and whose soundtrack remains one of the world's best-selling albums. It features two major hit duets with co-star John Travolta: "You're the One That I Want"—which is one of the best-selling singles of all time—and "Summer Nights". Her signature solo recordings include the Record of the Year Grammy winner "I Honestly Love You" and "Physical" —Billboards highest-ranking Hot 100 single of the 1980s. Other defining hit singles include "If Not for You" and "Banks of the Ohio", "Let Me Be There", "If You Love Me ", "Have You Never Been Mellow", "Sam", "Hopelessly Devoted to You", "A Little More Love", "Twist of Fate" and, from the 1980 film Xanadu, "Magic" and "Xanadu".
Newton-John's accolades include four Grammy Awards, a Daytime Emmy Award, nine Billboard Music Awards, six American Music Awards, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and an induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame. She scored fifteen top-ten singles, including five number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100, and two number-one albums on the Billboard 200: If You Love Me, Let Me Know and Have You Never Been Mellow. Eleven of her singles and fourteen of her albums have been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. She was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia in 2006 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2020.
Newton-John, who had breast cancer three times, was an advocate and sponsor for breast cancer research. In 2012, the Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre at the Austin Hospital opened in her home town of Melbourne; in 2015, the facility was rechristened the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre. She was also an activist for environmental and animal rights causes.
Early life and family
Olivia Newton-John was born on 26 September 1948 in Cambridge to Brinley "Brin" Newton-John and Irene Helene. Her father was born and raised in Wales to a middle-class family. Her mother was born and raised in Germany to a German-Jewish academic family who came to the UK in 1933 to escape the Nazi regime.Newton-John's maternal grandfather was German Jewish Nobel Prize–winning physicist Max Born. Her maternal grandmother Hedwig was the daughter of German Jewish jurist Victor Ehrenberg and his Lutheran wife, Helene Agatha von Jhering. Through Helene Agatha, Newton-John was a descendant of Protestant theologian Martin Luther. She was also descended from an unspecified Spanish monarch. Helene Agatha's own father, Newton-John's great-great-grandfather, was jurist Rudolf von Jhering. Newton-John's uncle was pharmacologist Gustav Victor Rudolf Born. Through her Ehrenberg line, Newton-John was a third cousin of comedian Ben Elton.
Newton-John's father was an MI5 officer on the Enigma project at Bletchley Park who took Rudolf Hess into custody during World War II. After the war, he became the headmaster of the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys and was in this post when Newton-John was born.
In early 1954, when Newton-John was five, her family emigrated to Melbourne, Victoria, on the SS Strathaird. Her father worked as a professor of German and as the master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne. Her family attended church while her father served as the head of the Presbyterian college.
Newton-John attended Christ Church Grammar School in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra and then the University High School in Parkville.
Newton-John was the youngest of three children. The eldest sibling was Hugh Newton-John, who became a physician and infectious diseases specialist.
Newton-John's older sister, Rona Newton-John, became a model and actress whose acting career in the UK included appearances on The Benny Hill Show and Gerry Anderson's UFO. Rona was married three times and had four children including, from her first marriage to restaurateur and nightclub owner Brian Goldsmith, music producer Brett Goldsmith and entertainer Tottie Goldsmith, a founder member of the band The Chantoozies. Racing car driver Emerson Newton-John is the son from her second marriage to Graham Hall, and Rona was also married from 1980 to 1985 to Grease and Taxi actor Jeff Conaway.
Newton-John's parents divorced in 1958. Her father Brin remarried two more times and also had two more children with his second wife.
Career
Career beginnings
Newton-John went to primary school with Daryl Braithwaite, who also followed a singing career. At age 14, with three classmates, Newton-John formed a short-lived, all-girl group called Sol Four which often performed at a coffee shop owned by her brother-in-law.Newton-John originally wanted to become a vet but then chose to focus on performance after doubting her ability to pass science exams.
In 1964, Newton-John's acting talent was first recognised portraying Lady Mary Lasenby in her University High School's production of The Admirable Crichton as she became the Young Sun's Drama Award best schoolgirl actress runner-up. She then became a regular on local Australian television shows, including Time for Terry and HSV-7's The Happy Show, where she performed as "Lovely Livvy". She also appeared on The Go!! Show, where she met her future duet partner, singer Pat Carroll, and her future music producer, John Farrar.
In 1965, she entered and won a talent contest on the television program Sing, Sing, Sing, hosted by 1960s Australian icon Johnny O'Keefe. She performed the songs "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and "Everything's Coming Up Roses". She was initially reluctant to use her prize, a trip to Great Britain, but travelled there nearly a year later after her mother encouraged her to broaden her horizons.
While in Britain, Newton-John missed her then-boyfriend, Ian Turpie, with whom she had co-starred in the 1965 Australian telefilm Funny Things Happen Down Under. She repeatedly booked trips back to Australia that her mother cancelled.
In 1966, Newton-John recorded her first single, "Till You Say You'll Be Mine", in Britain for Decca Records.
Newton-John's outlook changed when Pat Carroll moved to the UK. The two formed a duo called Pat and Olivia and toured nightclubs in Europe. During this period, she and Carroll contributed backup vocals to recordings by a number of other artists, notably the song "Come In, You'll Get Pneumonia" by the Easybeats. After Carroll's visa expired, Carroll was forced to return to Australia but Newton-John remained in Britain to pursue solo work.
Newton-John was recruited for the group Toomorrow, formed by American producer Don Kirshner. In 1970, the group starred in the science fiction musical Toomorrow and recorded an accompanying soundtrack album on RCA Records; both the LP and the movie were named after the group. That same year, the group made two single recordings: "You're My Baby Now"/"Goin' Back" and "I Could Never Live Without Your Love"/"Roll Like a River". Neither track became a chart success; the project failed and the group disbanded.
1971–1974: Early success
In 1971, Newton-John released her first solo album, If Not for You. In the UK, the album was released as Olivia Newton-John. The title track, written by Bob Dylan, was her first international hit. Her follow-up single, "Banks of the Ohio", was a top 10 hit in the UK and Australia, but only peaked at number 94 in the United States. She was voted Best British Female Vocalist two years in a row by the magazine Record Mirror. She made frequent appearances on Cliff Richard's weekly show It's Cliff Richard and starred with him in the telefilm The Case.Newton-John's 1972 single "What Is Life" made minimal impact in the United States. As a result, her second studio album Olivia was never formally issued in the United States. The subsequent single, "Take Me Home, Country Roads", similarly saw little success. Her fortune changed with the release of "Let Me Be There" in 1973. The song reached the American top 10 on the Pop, Country, and AC charts and earned her a Grammy for Best Country Female and an Academy of Country Music award for Most Promising Female Vocalist.
Her third studio album Let Me Be There was released in November 1973, retitled Music Makes My Day in Britain. The US and Canadian versions featured an alternate track list that mixed new cuts with selections from Olivia and also recycled six songs from If Not for You, which was going out of print.
File:Dionne Warwick, Don Kirschner, Helen Reddy Olivia Newton-John 1974.JPG|thumb|upright|From left to right: Dionne Warwick, Don Kirshner, Helen Reddy, and Newton-John in 1974
In 1974, Newton-John represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Long Live Love". The song was chosen for Newton-John by the British public out of six possible entries. Newton-John finished fourth at the contest, held in Brighton, behind the Swedish winning entry, "Waterloo" by ABBA. All six Eurovision contest song candidates—"Have Love, Will Travel", "Lovin' You Ain't Easy", "Long Live Love", "Someday", "Angel Eyes" and "Hands Across the Sea"—were recorded by Newton-John and included on her Long Live Love album, her first for the EMI Records label.
The Long Live Love album was released in the US and Canada as If You Love Me, Let Me Know. All the Eurovision entries were dropped for different and more country-flavoured tunes intended to capitalise on the success of "Let Me Be There"; the North American offering used selections from Long Live Love, Olivia and Music Makes My Day, and only the title cut was new. The album reached No. 1 on both the pop and country albums charts. If You Love Me, Let Me Know title track was its first single and reached No. 5 Pop, No. 2 Country and No. 2 AC. The next single, "I Honestly Love You", became Newton-John's signature song. Written and composed by Jeff Barry and Peter Allen, the ballad became her first Pop number-one, second AC number-one and third top-10 Country hit and earned Newton-John two more Grammys for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance – Female. In her 2018 autobiography, Don't Stop Believin', Newton-John describes "I Honestly Love You" as a song which is "so simple, with a meaning that was deeper than the ocean". In 1974, she received the British Country Music Association Award for "Female Vocalist of the Year" in London, England.
In the United States, Newton-John's success in country music sparked a debate among purists, who took issue with a foreigner singing country-flavoured pop music being classed with native Nashville artists. In addition to her Grammy for "Let Me Be There", in 1974 Newton-John was also named the Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year, a designation which made her the first British singer to have won the award; and the title also meant she defeated more established Nashville-based nominees Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tanya Tucker, as well as Canadian artist Anne Murray.
This protest by country music participants led to the formation of the short-lived Association of Country Entertainers. Newton-John was eventually supported by the country music community. Stella Parton, Dolly's sister, recorded "Ode to Olivia" and Newton-John recorded her 1976 album, Don't Stop Believin'