Olivia Newton-John

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" (1974) and "Physical" (1981)—Billboard's highest-ranking Hot 100 single of the 1980s. Other defining hit singles include "If Not for You" and "Banks of the Ohio" (both 1971), "Let Me Be There" (1973), "If You Love Me (Let Me Know)" (1974), "Have You Never Been Mellow" (1975), "Sam" (1977), "Hopelessly Devoted to You" (1978; also from Grease), "A Little More Love" (1978), "Twist of Fate" (1983) and, from the 1980 film Xanadu, "Magic" and "Xanadu" (with the Electric Light Orchestra).


With over 100 million records sold ^[5]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.^[6][7] Newton-John, who had breast cancer three times, was an advocate and sponsor for breast cancer research. In 2012, the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre opened in her home town of Melbourne.^[8] She also was an activist for environmental and animal rights causes.^[9][10]

Early life and family[edit]

Olivia Newton-John was born on 26 September 1948^[11] in Cambridge, to Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John (1914–1992) and Irene Helene (née Born; 1914–2003).^[11] 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.^[12][13]


Newton-John's maternal grandfather was German Jewish Nobel Prize–winning physicist Max Born.^[14][15][16] Her maternal grandmother Hedwig was the daughter of German Jewish jurist Victor Ehrenberg, and of 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.^[17][18] 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.^[14]


Newton-John's father was an MI5 officer^[19] on the Enigma project at Bletchley Park who took Rudolf Hess into custody during World War II.^[20][21] After the war, he became the headmaster of the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys and was in this post when Newton-John was born.^[22]


Newton-John was the youngest of three children, following her brother Hugh (1939–2019), a medical doctor, and her sister Rona (1941–2013), an actress who was married to restaurateur Brian Goldsmith^[23] and was later married to Newton-John's Grease co-star Jeff Conaway (from 1980 until their divorce in 1985). She also had a half-brother, Toby, and a half-sister, Sarah, both of whom were born of her father's second marriage.


In early 1954, when Newton-John was five, her family emigrated to Melbourne, Victoria, on the SS Strathaird.^[24] Her father worked as a professor of German and as the master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne.^[25] Her family attended church while her father served as the head of the Presbyterian college.^[26]


Newton-John attended Christ Church Grammar School in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra^[27] and then the University High School in Parkville.^[28]

In the media[edit]

On 2 November 2019, Julien's Auctions auctioned hundreds of memorabilia items from Newton-John's career. The sale raised $2.4 million. Newton-John's Grease outfit garnered $405,700; her pants and jacket were purchased separately by two different billionaires. Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, bought Newton-John's black skintight pants from Grease for $162,000.^[199] The anonymous buyer who acquired her famous Grease leather jacket for $243,200 (£185,000) returned the item to her and said: "It should not sit in a billionaire's closet for country-club bragging rights [...] The odds of beating a recurring cancer using the newest emerging therapies is a thousandfold greater than someone appearing out of the blue, buying your most famous and cherished icon, and returning it to you." All proceeds were donated to her Cancer Wellness and Research Centre in Australia.^{[200][201][202]}

Musical legacy[edit]

Newton-John's first boyfriend, Ian Turpie, once said of her early appearances: "In those days she had a small voice, but it was very pure. She could sing prettily in tune....The improvement in her singing since she went to England has been remarkable. She told me Shirley Bassey has been a big influence on her. After hearing Bassey, she worked at developing her head voice to sound like a chest voice, the way Bassey uses hers. The power she's developed is amazing".^[34]


Michael Dwyer of the Sydney Morning Herald maintains that following Newton-John's career was like watching "our slightly older and braver sister growing up in public" and her passing "feels today like a lost member of the family".^[203] Rachel Syme of The New Yorker also suggests that her familial, down-to-earth demeanor and humanity may have even superseded her singing accomplishments: "Her most lasting legacy might be as the rare celebrity who was almost universally well liked, and thought of as an essentially kind and warmhearted person".^[204]


Her musical abilities on their own merits were also impressive. In her 1982 Olivia in Concert performance of Dolly Parton's "Jolene," Newton-John showcases a down-falling note range covering three octaves. (Much later, Newton-John and Parton recorded a duet of "Jolene," which was not formally released until after Newton-John's death.)^[205] In her memoir, Newton-John describes herself as "not a power singer but more of an interpretive one";^[206] and author Lauren O'Neill concurs: "She sang with clarity and precision, her high notes bright and open like a window on a summer morning, but her voice was never clinical – a sultry purr, euphoric cry or breathy gasp seemed always available to her....Her vocal [on "Hopelessly Devoted to You" from Grease] is clean and soaring, but to hear it is to be right down in the dirt with Sandy too; to feel, and perhaps even identify with, her total frustration with herself. As she slides between notes while singing 'I'm out of my head,' she shows us her emotional freefall as well as telling us about it."^[207]


Long before and after the career summit of Grease, Newton-John proved herself to be a fairly versatile performer, lending her instrument to everything from sentimental ballads and New Age soul searching to lively dance productions and rock & soul fervor. Maura Johnston of Vulture assesses: "Newton-John was a regular chart-topper...throughout the ’70s, her lithe soprano adapting well to the soft pop sound" of the era with "AM Gold staples and tracks from the folk and country world...As it turned out, Newton-John’s voice was pretty well suited to the spiky dance pop that would become popular in the early 1980s" too.^[47] However, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of the Los Angeles Times offers a counterpoint on her career decline in the mid-1980s: "Hardness never was Newton-John's comfort zone, though, and the 1980s were a much harder decade than the 1970s. The inherent warmth of 1970s studio sessions gave way to the cold, synthesized gleam of the 1980s, a sterile sound that suited her well only once: the candied faux-new wave of 'Twist of Fate'", produced by David Foster.^[208] Johnston further maintains: "Her pop heyday transcended any attempts to musically pigeonhole her"; and by the time she stopped having many new hits, "her musical legacy ... had been pretty well solidified."^[47]


Newton-John's work has inspired many other female vocalists, including Juliana Hatfield, Lisa Loeb, Kylie Minogue, Delta Goodrem, Natalie Maines and Alanis Morissette.^{[209][210][211][212][213][214]} Pink staged a commemorative Newton-John cover during the 2022 American Music Awards.^[215] At the 2022 ARIA Music Awards, a special tribute in her honour featured performances by Natalie Imbruglia, Peking Duk and Tones and I.^[216]