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| Birth Name(s) : Olivia Newton-John |
Date of Birth: September 26, 1948 |
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| Profession:
Actor/Musician |
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Full Olivia Newton-John Biography
Olivia Newton-John was born in Cambridge, England on September 26th 1948; her family moved to Australia when she was 5. Her mother was German, daughter of the physicist Max Born, her father was Welsh, a professor of German at Cambridge and Melbourne. Despite the academic background, early on Olivia showed an interest in singing, forming a band called the Sol Four with some schoolfriends, and later on singing at her brother in law's coffee bar in Australia. She also starred in a movie "Funny Things Happen Down Under" which was forgettable apart from some early promise shown in Olivia's delightful rendition of "Christmas Down Under".
A talent contest hosted by the Australian Johnny O'Keefe offered Olivia the prize of a trip to England, and she took this up in 1965. Her first introduction to making records was a one-off single deal with Decca Records. The single, Till You Say You'll Be Mine/For Ever, is extremely rare though these two songs were available (Oct 1994) on the British compilation CD Pop Inside the 60's.
Things improved when Pat Carroll, a fellow Australian, arrived in the UK. Dreaming of stardom the two girls played pubs and clubs as the vocal duo imaginatively called "Pat and Olivia". New to the British music scene their initial hirings were not always a success - such as the duo's performance at Paul Raymond's Revue bar. They were somewhat taken aback by the scant attire of some of the other performers. Needless to say the duo who were dressed in high-necked frilly dresses were not asked back to what they later on discovered was a strip joint...
In 1968 Bruce Welch of the Shadows fell for Olivia and they became engaged, something which was not entirely without problems as he was married at the time...
Pat's visa ran out in December 1969 and she returned home. For Olivia, movie stardom beckoned as she was invited to join the band Toomorrow, which was to be Britain's answer to the Monkees. This manufactured group issued an eponymous album in 1970 to go with the film of the same name, but the public were not impressed and the movie closed quickly, leaving Olivia to concentrate on her solo music career.
The early Seventies was a prolific period for Olivia - her association with Cliff Richard and the Shadows brought her music to a wide audience, and she released the albums Olivia Newton-John (1971), and Olivia (1972), Music Makes My Day (1973)
Bruce Welch arranged Olivia's first hit single, a cover of Bob Dylan's If Not For You. This single was Olivia's first taste of success in America, something she was to experience a lot more of in the next few years.
Olivia reached a turning point in her career with the release of Let Me Be There which charted at #6 in America. No longer engaged to Bruce Welch, John Farrar, another member of the Shadows, took up songwriting and arrangement for her and this was a successful team which was soon to take the United States by storm. John Farrar had known Olivia from the early days and he later married Pat Carroll, Olivia's erstwhile singing partner and future business partner.
While holidaying in 1974 in the South of France, Olivia met Lee Kramer, who had a successful business import/export business. The romance developed, and Lee was Olivia's boyfriend and manager for much of the rest of the decade.
America beckoned and Olivia left England in 1975 to a rapturous welcome for her next album "Have You Never Been Mellow". The title song charted at #1 and her next single from the album, Please Mr Please, reached #3. This was the start of a roll which continued throughout the 70s with a string of gold albums in the US. Olivia was to become a regular on shows like the Midnight Special, and in 1976 she had her own TV special by ABC - A Very Special Olivia Newton-John.
Her US audience had loved her for her soft and delicate delivery of ballads and country songs, and she treated them to a string of albums beautifully sung - Clearly Love, Come On Over, Don't Stop Believin, and Making a Good Thing Better. She toured the United States with the album Clearly Love.
It was always going to be difficult to follow up such a huge success, and Olivia's next movie, Xanadu (1980), received a panning from the critics and did not draw the public into the cinema. However, the soundtrack was a roaring success, with Olivia's song Magic topping the US charts, and the title song, a duet with ELO, also selling well. The movie has since become something of a cult classic, with a small but dedicated following.
The movie did have a personal spin-off for Olivia - she met her future husband, Matt Lattanzi, who was a dancer on the set of Xanadu.
In 1981 Olivia released the album Physical. The million-selling title track took up residence at #1 on the US charts for weeks - the second-longest run in the top spot. She had some trepidation about how her fans would like the new direction but she needn't have worried - they loved it!
With the aerobic feel of the title track and accompanying video, Olivia's early 80's trademark was the short cropped hair and headband. With the album there was also a full-length video, which was unusual at the time when videos were normally just for individual songs. The album was so successful that when Olivia toured with it the next year she played all over America to sell-out audiences.
The bombshell came on July 2 - Olivia Newton-John had breast cancer. She was taken to hospital and operated on, and then had to undergo a period of chemotherapy. In February the next year she got the all-clear, and went to Australia to recuperate.
Gaia, One Woman's Journey, an intensely personal and upbeat album, was one of the fruits of Olivia's time in Australia out of the limelight. The album was not released in the United States but was widely issued on independent labels elsewhere. Olivia chose to talk about her experiences with breast cancer, so that other women in a similar position could see that survival was possible, and early detection was important.
After her recovery, there were reports of difficulty in Olivia's marriage, which came to a head in 1995 with the announcement that Olivia and husband Matt Lattanzi, were to go their separate ways and eventually divorce. For the next two years Olivia's career was a medley of different directions, with her participating in beauty ads for Home Shopping, a bit part in a US sitcom, an Australian wildlife show titled "Human Nature", appearing in an Aussie TV series "Snowy River" and acting in the movie "It's My Party" directed by Grease director Randal Kleiser.
Most people think of Olivia as an interpretative singer, singing with her unique blend of a clear and light voice combined with a delicate sensitivity and tenderness. This was how she captured American hearts in the mid-seventies, with songs like I Honestly Love You and Have You Never Been Mellow.
However, Olivia has never been happy to stay still, and has continuously broadened her music, showing herself to be a versatile singer as she covered rock songs as well as the gentle folk songs and ballads which formed her early repertoire. Indeed, her most successful single 'Physical' came in 1981, and was a raunchy upbeat number far removed from the type of songs that established her career in the US. Though most of her songs till recently were written by others, already on her second album the self-penned song Changes showed her potential for songwriting, and she has continued to write some very special songs around topics that have deeply concerned her. On Gaia, all the songs are written by her, and Back With A Heart combines some great pop sounds with some strong new country tracks. |
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Additional Olivia Newton-John Biography
Olivia Newton-John AO OBE (born 26 September 1948) is a Grammy Award-winning and Golden Globe-nominated English-born Australian pop singer, songwriter and actress. Her highly acclaimed vocal, musical, and acting talents have made her a globally recognized name. She is also a small business entrepreneur, as well as an avid activist in both environmental issues and breast cancer awareness.
In 1954, at the age of five, Newton-John, her parents Brin and Irene, and her older siblings Hugh and Rona, emigrated to Melbourne, Australia, where her father had taken a job at Melbourne University as the Master of Ormond College.
Newton-John began 1980 by releasing I Can't Help It (No. 12 Pop, No. 8 AC), a duet with Andy Gibb from his After Dark album. Later that year, she appeared in her first film since Grease, starring in the musical Xanadu with Gene Kelly and Michael Beck. While the movie was a critical failure, it was ultimately profitable and its soundtrack was certified double platinum. The soundtrack boasted five Top 20 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 including Newton-John's Magic (No. 1 Pop, No. 1 AC), Suddenly with Cliff Richard (No. 20 Pop, No. 4 AC) and the title-song with ELO (No. 8 Pop, No. 2 AC). The film has since become a cult classic and the basis for a well-reviewed Broadway show in 2007. Newton-John received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recognition of her career the following year.
1981 saw the release of Newton-John's most successful studio album, the double platinum Physical. The title track, written by Steve Kipner and Terry Shaddick, spent ten weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, matching the then record of most weeks at No. 1 by a female artist held by Debby Boone's You Light Up My Life. The single was certified platinum and ultimately ranked as the biggest song of the decade. The album spawned two more singles, Make A Move On Me (No. 5 Pop, No. 6 AC) and Landslide (No. 52 Pop). To counter the overtly suggestive tone of the title track, Newton-John filmed an exercise-themed video that turned the song into an aerobics anthem (and made headbands a fashion accessory outside the gym). Newton-John became a pioneer in the nascent music video industry by recording a video album for Physical featuring videos of all the album's tracks as well as three of her older hits. The video album earned her a fourth Grammy and was aired as an ABC prime time special, Let's Get Physical, becoming a Top 10 Nielsen hit. The success of Physical led to an international tour and the release of her second hits collection, the double platinum Olivia's Greatest Hits Vol. 2, which yielded two more Top 40 singles: Heart Attack (No. 3 Pop) and Tied Up (No. 38 Pop). The tour was filmed for her Olivia In Concert television special, which premiered on HBO in January 1983. The special was subsequently released to video, earning Newton-John another Grammy nomination.
Newton-John's cancer diagnosis affected the type of music she recorded. In 1994, she released Gaia: One Woman's Journey, which chronicled her ordeal. This was the first album on which Newton-John wrote all of the songs encouraging her to become more active as a songwriter thereafter. In 2005, she released Stronger Than Before which was sold exclusively in the United States by Hallmark. Proceeds from the album's sales benefited breast cancer research. The following year, Newton-John released a healing CD, Grace And Gratitude. The album was sold exclusively by Walgreens also benefitting various charities and was the "heart" of their "Body - Heart - Spirit" Wellness Collection. The collection also featured a re-branded Liv-Kit and breast health dietary supplements.
Newton-John's subsequent albums were all released overseas primarily in Australia. Newton-John, John Farnham and Anthony Warlow toured Australia as The Main Event. The live album won an ARIA Award for Highest Selling Australian CD and was also nominated for Best Adult Contemporary Album. She and Farnham performed Dare To Dream at the Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. In 2002, Newton-John released (2), a duets album featuring mostly Australian singers including Darren Hayes, Tina Arena, Jimmy Little, Billy Thorpe and Johnny O'Keefe as well as a heartfelt "duet" with the deceased Peter Allen. The same year, Newton-John was inducted into Australia's ARIA Hall of Fame. 2004 brought the release of Indigo: Women of Song, a tribute album covering songs by The Carpenters, Minnie Riperton, Doris Day, Nina Simone, Joan Baez and others. Newton-John dedicated the album to her mother who died the previous year.
In 2002, she was inducted into the Australian Music Hall of Fame by the Australian Recording Industry Association. |
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| I live every day to its fullest extent and I don't sweat the small stuff. |
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