Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John

Dame Olivia Newton-John AC DBE is a British-Australian singer, songwriter, actress, entrepreneur and activist. She is a four-time Grammy Award winner whose chart career includes five US number ones and another ten Top Tens on Billboard’s Hot 100. In 1978 she starred in the musical film Grease, whose soundtrack remains one of the most successful in history. She has been a long-time activist for environmental and animal rights issues. Her business interests have included launching several product lines for Koala Blue and co-owning the Gaia Retreat & Spa in Australia.

About Olivia Newton-John in brief

Summary Olivia Newton-JohnDame Olivia Newton-John AC DBE is a British-Australian singer, songwriter, actress, entrepreneur and activist. She is a four-time Grammy Award winner whose chart career includes five US number ones and another ten Top Tens on Billboard’s Hot 100. In 1978 she starred in the musical film Grease, whose soundtrack remains one of the most successful in history and features two major hit duets with co-star John Travolta. She has been a long-time activist for environmental and animal rights issues. Her business interests have included launching several product lines for Koala Blue and co-owning the Gaia Retreat & Spa in Australia. Her father was an MI5 officer on the Enigma project at Bletchley Park who took Rudolf Hess into custody during World War II. Her Jewish maternal grandfather, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born, fled with his family to Britain from Germany before World War Two to escape the Nazi regime. Her maternal grandmother was of paternal Jewish ancestry as well. She was born on 26 September 1948 in Cambridge, United Kingdom, to the Welshman Brinley \”Bryn\” Newton- John and Irene Helene . She is the youngest of three children, following her brother Hugh, a medical doctor, and her sister Rona . In 1954, when she was six, her family emigrated to Melbourne, Australia, where her father worked as a professor of German and as the master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne. She attended the Christ Church Grammar School in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra and then the University High School near ormond College.

She entered and won a talent contest on the television program Sing, Sing, sing, hosted by 1960s Australian icon Johnny O’Keefe. She became a regular on local Australian radio and television shows including HSV-7’s The Happy Show. She also appeared on The Go!! Show where she met future duet partner, singer Pat Carroll, and future music producer, John Farrar. After Carroll’s visa expired, forcing her to return to Australia, she remained in Britain to pursue solo work until 1975. She then toured Europe with American producer Don Kiromom, forming the group Don’t Be Tardy, which toured the U.S. with Ian Turpie, with whom she had co- starred in an Australian telefilm, Funny Things Happen Down Under. The two formed a duo called Pat and Olivia and toured nightclubs in Europe in the 1970s and 1980s. In the early 1990s, she moved to the UK to pursue a solo career. She recorded her first single, \”T You’ll Be Mine\”, in 1966 for Decca Records in Britain. She has sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. Her signature solo recordings include the Record of the Year Grammy winner \”I Honestly Love You\” and \”Physical\” – Billboard’s top Hot 100 single of the 1980s – plus her cover of \”If Not for You\”