Actors - Olivia Newton-John

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	Actors - Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John (born September 26 1948, Cambridge) is a British-born Australian singer and actress.

Early life

Olivia Newton-John, OBE is the granddaughter of Max Born, a German Jewish Nobel prize-winning physicist (although Olivia herself is a Christian) who fled from 1930s Germany with his wife in order to avoid persecution due to their Jewish heritage. Olivia's father, Brin Newton-John, was originally from Wales, Great Britain. Brin was the MI5 officer who took Rudolf Hess into custody when he parachuted into Scotland in May 1941. Brin was attached to the Enigma machine project at Bletchley Park. After World War II, he became a professor of German at the UNSW annex at Tighes Hill.

In 1954, at the age of five, Olivia, her parents, Brin and Irene Newton-John, and her older siblings, Hugh and Rona, relocated to Melbourne, Australia. Her father had taken a job at Melbourne University as the Dean of Ormond College. Her parents divorced when Olivia was eleven years old.

Career

Early career

By the age of 15, Newton-John had formed an all-girl band, Sol Four, and soon was a regular on local television (such as The Happy Tarex Show as Lovely Livvy) and radio shows in Australia. She entered a talent contest on the television programme Sing, Sing, Sing, hosted by 1960s Australian icon Johnny O'Keefe, and performed the songs "Anyone Who Had A Heart" and "Everything's Coming Up Roses". She won the contest and received a trip to England as the prize. Initially, she did not want to go, but her mother encouraged her to broaden her horizons.

By 1963, Newton-John was appearing on the local daytime TV shows and weekly pop programs in Australia. It was on the Go Show, where she met her lifelong friends, Pat Carroll and John Farrar. (Carroll and Farrar eventually married.)

When she was 16 years old, Newton-John returned to England to live with her mother. Newton-John was homesick in England as she missed Australia and her then boyfriend, Ian Turpie. This changed when friend Pat Carroll also moved to England. The two formed a duo and toured nightclubs in Europe. After Carroll's visa expired, and she had to return to Australia, Newton-John cut her first solo single, "Till You Say You'll Be Mine", backed with "For Ever," for Decca Records in England in 1966.

Newton-John's first album was titled Tomorrow , which was also the name of her musical group at the time. They were the brainchild of American producer Don Kirshner, creator of The Monkees. The group also starred in the movie Toomorrow.

Although the band and film were commercially unsuccessful, Newton-John's solo career started to take off with her first solo album titled Olivia Newton-John, which was released in the United Kingdom on Pye Records. Newton-John quickly became one of Britain's most popular singers. She was voted Best British Female Vocalist two years in a row by the magazine Record Mirror. In 1968 she met The Shadows' guitarist Bruce Welch, to whom she became engaged until 1972. They made appearances on Cliff Richard's weekly show It's Cliff Richard and she starred with Cliff in the telefilm The Case.

International success

Newton-John's first international hit was a song written by Bob Dylan called "If Not For You," which was produced by Bruce Welch and her friend John Farrar and released in 1971. She represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 and came in at fourth place. Later in the year, the album If You Love Me, Let Me Know and the single "I Honestly Love You" were released in the United States, and "I Honestly Love You" became her first single to chart at #1 across the Atlantic.

In 1975, encouraged by expatriate Australian singer Helen Reddy, Newton-John left England and moved to the United States, where she became a popular singer in both country and popular music. The 1975 release of Have You Never Been Mellow yielded a #1 album and a #1 song (the title single), and helped to continue her U.S. success. She had three more #1 hits, including the song Physical, which stayed at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for ten weeks. She has received four Grammys in her career. She received an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) from Queen Elizabeth II in 1979.

In the country music field, she was respected and loved by fans as much as she was reviled by country purists who believed her brand of music had no place on country radio. In 1974, she won the Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year award, beating out such country heavyweights as Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Anne Murray and Tanya Tucker. Another country icon, Tammy Wynette, was not even nominated. Newton-John's win angered many pure country artists and fans, and perhaps as a direct result, some country artists and other influential personalities became members of a newly formed organization called the Association of Country Entertainers.

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Actors - Olivia Newton-John

Early life

Career

Early career

International success

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