| Olivia Newton-John | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born: | September 26, 1948 |
| Birth Hometown: | Cambridge, England |
| Died: | August 8, 2022 |
| Place of death: | Santa Ynez Valley, California |
| Occupation: | Singer Songwriter Actress Activist |
| Years active: | 1963–2022 |
| Known for: | Starred in Grease |
Dame Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) was an English-born Australian singer, actress and activist. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included five number-one hits and another ten top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100, and two number-one albums on the Billboard 200; If You Love Me, Let Me Know (1974) and Have You Never Been Mellow (1975). Eleven of her singles (including two Platinum) and 14 of her albums (including two Platinum and four 2× Platinum) have been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With global sales of more than 100 million records, Newton-John is one of the best-selling music artists from the second half of the 20th century to the present.
In 1978, Newton-John starred in the musical film Grease, whose soundtrack remains one of the world's best-selling albums of all time. 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 Hot 100 highest-ranking single of the 1980s. Other 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), and from the 1980 film Xanadu, "Magic" and "Xanadu" (with Electric Light Orchestra).
Newton-John was an activist for environmental and animal rights causes, and advocated for breast cancer research.
Early life[]
Newton-John was born on 26 September 1948 in Cambridge, England, to Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John (1914–1992) and Irene Helene (née Born; 1914–2003). Her father was born in Wales, to a middle-class family. Her mother was born in Germany, and had come to the UK with her family in 1933 to escape the Nazi Regime. Olivia'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 of his Lutheran wife, whose own father, Olivia's great-great-grandfather, was jurist Rudolf von Jhering. Her 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 position when Olivia was born.
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 Olivia's Grease co-star Jeff Conaway (from 1980 until their divorce in 1985). In 1954, when she was six, Newton-John's 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 Christ Church Grammar School in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra and then the University High School in Parkville.
Career[]
At age 14, Newton-John formed Sol Four, a short-lived all-girl group, with three classmates, often performing in a coffee shop owned by her brother-in-law. She 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 (Carroll and Farrar later married). In 1965 she entered and won a talent contest on the television program Sing, Sing, Sing, hosted by 1960s Australian icon Johnny O'Keefe, performing the songs "Anyone Who Had a Heart" and "Everything's Coming Up Roses". She was initially reluctant to use the prize she had won, a trip to Great Britain, but travelled there nearly a year later after her mother encouraged her to broaden her horizons.
Newton-John recorded her first single, "Till You Say You'll Be Mine", in Britain for Decca Records in 1966. While in Britain, Newton-John missed her then-boyfriend, Ian Turpie, with whom she had co-starred in an Australian telefilm, Funny Things Happen Down Under. She repeatedly booked trips back to Australia that her mother canceled.
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. (In one incident, they were booked at Paul Raymond's Revue in Soho, London, and were unaware that it was a strip club until they began to perform onstage dressed primly in frilly, high-collared dresses.) After Carroll's visa expired, forcing her to return to Australia, Newton-John remained in Britain to pursue solo work until 1975.
Newton-John was recruited for the group Toomorrow, formed by American producer Don Kirshner. In 1970, the group starred in a "science fiction musical" film and recorded an accompanying soundtrack album, on RCA Records, both 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.
Newton-John released her first solo album, If Not for You (US No. 158 Pop), in 1971. (In the UK, the album was known as Olivia Newton-John.) The title track, written by Bob Dylan, was her first international hit (US No. 25 Pop, No. 1 Adult Contemporary/"AC"). Her follow-up single, "Banks of the Ohio", was a top 10 hit in the UK and Australia. 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.
In 1972, Newton-John's second UK album, Olivia, was released but never formally issued in the United States, where her career floundered after If Not for You. Subsequent singles including "Banks of the Ohio" (No. 94 Pop, No. 34 AC) and remakes of George Harrison's "What Is Life" (No. 34 AC) and John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (No. 119 Pop) made minimal impact on the Hot 100. Her fortune changed with the release of "Let Me Be There" in 1973. The song reached the American top 10 on the Pop (No. 6), Country (No. 7), and AC (No. 3) charts and earned her a Grammy for Best Country Female and an Academy of Country Music award for Most Promising Female Vocalist.
Her second American album, named Let Me Be There after the hit single, was her third in Britain, where it is known as Music Makes My Day. It is also called Let Me Be There in Australia.
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 later admitted that she disliked the song). 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 titular cut was new. If You Love Me, Let Me Know's title track was its first single and reached No. 5 Pop, No. 2 Country (her best country position to date) 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 (staying there for two weeks), second AC number-one (for three weeks) and third top 10 Country (No. 6) hit and earned Newton-John two more Grammys for Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance – Female. The success of both singles helped the album reach No. 1 on both the Pop (one week) and Country (eight weeks) albums charts.
In the UK and Australia, "If You Love Me (Let Me Know)" was featured on compilations titled First Impressions and Great Hits! First Impressions respectively.
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", Newton-John was also named the Country Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year in 1974, defeating more established Nashville-based nominees Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and Tanya Tucker, as well as Canadian artist Anne Murray.
This protest, in part, led to the formation of the short-lived Association of Country Entertainers (ACE). 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', in Nashville, Tennessee.
Encouraged by expatriate Australian singer Helen Reddy, Newton-John left the UK and moved to the US. Newton-John topped the Pop (one week) and Country (six weeks) albums charts with her next album, Have You Never Been Mellow. For 45 years, Olivia held the Guinness World Record for the shortest gap (154 days) by a female between new Number 1 albums (If You Love Me, Let Me Know > Have You Never Been Mellow) on the US Billboard 200 album charts until Taylor Swift in 2020 (140 days with folklore > evermore). The If You Love Me, Let Me Know album generated two singles – the John Farrar-penned title track (No. 1 Pop, No. 3 Country, No. 1 AC) and "Please Mr. Please" (No. 3 Pop, No. 5 Country, No. 1 AC). Her pop career cooled with the release of her next album, Clearly Love. Her streak of five consecutive gold top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 ended when the album's first single, "Something Better to Do", stopped at No. 13 (also No. 19 Country and No. 1 AC). Her albums still achieved gold status, and she returned to the top ten of the Hot 100 and Billboard 200 charts again in 1978.
She provided a prominent, but uncredited, vocal on John Denver's "Fly Away" single, which was succeeded by her own single, "Let It Shine"/"He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", at No. 1 on the AC chart. ("Fly Away" returned to No. 1 after the two-week reign of "Let It Shine".) Newton-John also continued to reach the Country top 10 where she tallied seven top 10 singles through 1976's "Come on Over" (No. 23 Pop, No. 5 Country, No. 1 AC) and six consecutive (of a career nine total) top 10 albums through 1976's Don't Stop Believin' (No. 30 Pop, No. 7 Country). She headlined her first US television special, A Special Olivia Newton-John, in November 1976.
In 1977, the single "Sam", a mid-tempo waltz from Don't Stop Believin', returned her to the No. 1 spot on the AC (No. 40 Country) and also reached No. 20 Pop, her highest chart placement since "Something Better to Do". By mid-1977, Newton-John's pop, AC and country success all suffered a slight blow. Her Making a Good Thing Better album (No. 34 Pop, No. 13 Country) was not certified gold, and its only single, the title track (No. 87 Pop, No. 20 AC), did not reach the AC top 10 or the Country chart. Later that year, Olivia Newton-John's Greatest Hits (No. 13 Pop, No. 7 Country) became her first platinum album.
Newton-John was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1979 New Year Honours and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2020 New Year Honours for services to charity, cancer research and entertainment.
Newton-John continued to record and perform pop-oriented music as well. In 1998, she returned to Nashville to record Back with a Heart (No. 59 Pop). The album returned her to the top 10 (No. 9) on the Country Albums chart. Its first single was a re-recording of "I Honestly Love You" produced by David Foster and featuring Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds on background vocals that charted on the Pop (No. 67) and AC (No. 18) charts. Country radio dismissed the song, though it did peak at No. 16 on the Country Sales chart. The album track, "Love Is a Gift", won Newton-John a 1999 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Song after being featured on the daytime serial, As the World Turns.
During October–December 1998, Newton-John, John Farnham and Anthony Warlow performed in The Main Event Tour. The album Highlights from The Main Event peaked at No. 1 in December, was certified 4× platinum,won an ARIA Award for Highest Selling Australian CD at the 1999 Awards and was also nominated for Best Adult Contemporary Album.
For the 2000 Summer Olympics, Newton-John and Farnham re-teamed to perform "Dare to Dream" during the Parade of Nations at the Opening Ceremony. Broadcast of the ceremony was viewed by an estimated 3.5 billion people around the world.
In December 1998, following a hiatus of about 16 years, Newton-John also resumed touring by herself and in 2000 released a solo CD, One Woman's Live Journey, her first live album since 1981's Love Performance, which was only available in Japan on vinyl pressings and compact cassette.
Newton-John's subsequent secular albums were released primarily in Australia. In 2002, Newton-John released (2), a duets album featuring mostly Australian artists (Tina Arena, Darren Hayes, Jimmy Little, Johnny O'Keefe, Billy Thorpe, Keith Urban) as well as a "duet" with the deceased Peter Allen. In addition, (2) offered a hidden 12th track, a samba version of "Physical", which Newton-John later performed occasionally in concert instead of the more rock-style original. For (2)'s 2004 Japanese release, the acoustic version of "Physical" was switched to "Let It Be Me", a duet with Cliff Richard, with whom she had previously been coupled on "Suddenly" and Songs from Heathcliff.
In 2002, Newton-John was also inducted into Australia's ARIA Hall of Fame.
Produced by Phil Ramone and recorded at the Indigo Recording Studios in Malibu for ONJ Productions, Indigo: Women of Song was released in October 2004 in Australia. The tribute album featured Newton-John covering songs by artists such as Joan Baez, the Carpenters, Doris Day, Nina Simone, Minnie Riperton and others. Newton-John dedicated the album to her mother, who had died the previous year. Indigo was subsequently released in the UK in April 2005 and in Japan in March 2006. A re-branded and re-sequenced version called Portraits: A Tribute to Great Women of Song was eventually issued in the United States in 2011.
Newton-John also released several Christmas albums. In 2000, she teamed with Vince Gill and the London Symphony Orchestra for 'Tis the Season sold exclusively through Hallmark. The following year, she released The Christmas Collection, which compiled seasonal music previously recorded for her Hallmark Christmas album, her appearance on Kenny Loggins' 1999 TNN Christmas special and her contributions to the Mother and Child and Spirit of Christmasmulti-artist collections. (Green Hill Records re-released this album with different artwork in 2010.) In 2007, she re-teamed with her Grace and Gratitude producer, Amy Sky, for Christmas Wish (No. 187 Pop) which was sold exclusively by Target in its first year of release.
Newton-John acted occasionally since Two of a Kind. She appeared in a supporting role in the 1996 AIDS drama, It's My Party. In 2000, she appeared in a dramatically different role as Bitsy Mae Harling, a lesbian ex-con country singer, in Del Shores' Sordid Lives. Newton-John reprised her role for Sordid Lives: The Series which aired one season on the LOGO television network. The series featured five original songs written and composed by Newton-John specifically for the show. In 2010, Newton-John starred in the film Score: A Hockey Musical, released in Canada. Newton-John portrayed Hope Gordon, the mother of a home-schooled hockey prodigy. The film opened the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.
Newton-John's television work included starring in two Christmas films, A Mom for Christmas (1990) and A Christmas Romance (1994) – both top 10 Nielsen hits. Her daughter, Chloe, starred as one of her children in both A Christmas Romance and in the 2001 Showtime film The Wilde Girls. Newton-John guest-starred as herself in the sitcoms Ned and Stacey, Murphy Brown, and Bette, and made two appearances as herself on Glee.
For her first Glee appearance, Newton-John recreated her "Physical" video with series regular Jane Lynch. The performance was released as a digital single, returning Newton-John to the Billboard Hot 100 (No. 89) for the first time since her 1998 re-release of "I Honestly Love You". In Australia, Newton-John hosted the animal and nature series Wild Life and guest starred as Joanna on two episodes of the Australian series The Man From Snowy River.
Newton-John released another concert DVD, Olivia Newton-John and the Sydney Symphony: Live at the Sydney Opera House and a companion CD, her third live album titled Olivia's Live Hits. An edited version of the DVD premiered on PBS station, WLIW (Garden City, New York), in October 2007 and subsequently aired nationally during the network's fundraising pledge drives.
In 2008, Newton-John took part in the BBC Wales program Coming Home about her Welsh family history. Also, in 2008, Newton-John joined Anne Murray on Murray's last album, titled Duets: Friends & Legends. Newton-John sang Gordon Lightfoot's hit, "Cotton Jenny," with Murray.
In January 2011, Newton-John began filming the comedy A Few Best Men in Australia with director Stephan Elliott, in the role of mother of the bride. The groom is played by Xavier Samuel.
Newton-John was actively touring and doing concerts from 2012 to 2017 and also performed a handful of shows in 2018. In 2012, on an Australian tour of Perth, Melbourne and Sydney, as well as on a tour of the United States, she sang songs that she had never previously performed in concert. Her dates for A Summer Night with Olivia Newton-John even included stops in Asia and Canada and culminated in a rare concert appearance in London in 2013. Her March 2013 UK trek also encompassed Bournemouth, Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester and Cardiff, Wales.
In November 2012, Newton-John teamed with John Travolta to make the charity album This Christmas, in support of The Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre and the Jett Travolta Foundation. Artists featured on the album include: Barbra Streisand, James Taylor, Chick Corea, Kenny G, Tony Bennett, Cliff Richard and the Count Basie Orchestra.
A 2013 residency at the Flamingo Las Vegas was postponed due to the May 2013 death of her elder sister, Rona (aged 72), from a brain tumour. Newton-John resumed performing, doing 45 shows beginning in April 2014. Along with the Vegas shows, Newton-John released a new EP in April 2014 entitled Hotel Sessions, which consisted of seven tracks of unreleased demos that were recorded between 2002 and 2011 with her nephew Brett Goldsmith. The CD contains a cover of "Broken Wings" as well as the popular-with-fans original "Best of My Love", which had leaked on the internet many years prior.
Her Vegas stay was eventually extended beyond August 2014, and her Summer Nights residency finished in December 2016 after 175 shows. Her successful three-year run even prompted a fourth live album, Summer Nights: Live in Las Vegas (2015). In 2015, Newton-John also reunited with John Farnham for a joint venture called Two Strong Hearts Live.
In 2015, Newton-John was a guest judge on an episode of RuPaul's Drag Race. That same year, she scored her first number-one single on Billboard's Dance Club Songs chart with "You Have to Believe" with daughter Chloe and producer Dave Audé. The song was a re-imagining of her 1980 single "Magic", which she noted was to celebrate both the 35th anniversary of Xanadu and as a dedication to her daughter. About the latter Newton John stated .. "I met Chloe's dad on the set of Xanadu, so, without that film, Chloe wouldn't be here. She was the real 'magic' that came out of that film!" The song became the first mother-daughter single to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Dance Club Play chart.
In 2015, Newton-John was inducted into the Music Victoria Hall of Fame.
On 7 May 2019, Newton-John's elder brother Hugh, a doctor, died at age 80; his death left Newton-John as the sole surviving sibling.
In December 2019, Newton-John and Travolta also re-teamed for three live "Meet 'n' Grease" sing-along events in the Florida cities of Tampa, West Palm Beach and Jacksonville.
In January 2021, Newton-John released a new single, "Window in the Wall", a duet about unity which she recorded with her daughter Chloe Lattanzi. The music video for the song peaked at No. 1 on the iTunes pop music video chart the week of its release.
Personal life[]
Relationships[]
In the mid sixties, she dated another Australian actor, Ian Turpie. In 1968, Newton-John was engaged to but never married Bruce Welch, one of her early producers and co-writer of her hit "Please Mr. Please". In 1972, Newton-John ended her relationship with Welch, who subsequently attempted suicide.
In 1973, while vacationing on the French Riviera, Newton-John met British businessman Lee Kramer, who became both her new boyfriend and manager. Newton-John lived with Kramer on and off and they stayed a couple until 1979; she called their turbulent pairing "one long breakup". Kramer subsequently returned to England and married. He also managed vocalist Krishna Das. Kramer died in 2017.
Newton-John married her long-time partner, actor Matt Lattanzi, in December 1984. The couple had met four years earlier while filming Xanadu. They divorced in 1995. According to People magazine, people close to the couple cited the disparity between her spiritual interests and his more earthly ones as a key factor in the dissolution. The couple remained friends. Their daughter, Chloe Rose, was born in January 1986.
Newton-John met gaffer/cameraman Patrick McDermott a year after her 1995 divorce from Matt Lattanzi. The couple dated on and off for nine years. McDermott disappeared following a 2005 fishing trip off the Californian coast.Newton-John, who was in Australia at her Gaia Retreat & Spa at the time of his disappearance, was never a suspect in McDermott's disappearance. A United States Coast Guard investigation, based on then-available evidence and released in 2008, "suggest[ed] McDermott was lost at sea", with a friend telling investigators McDermott had appeared sad though not despondent after their breakup. Since his disappearance, unsubstantiated claims have been made, particularly in Australian tabloids, that McDermott faked his own death and is living in Mexico.
Newton-John married John Easterling, founder and president of the Amazon Herb Company, in an Incan spiritual ceremony in Peru on 21 June 2008, followed by a legal ceremony nine days later (30 June, 2008) on Jupiter Island, Florida.
Although raised in Australia, she remained a British subject through her childhood and did not formally become an Australian citizen until 1981, an application that was expedited by then Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.
After relocating to America in 1975, Newton-John set up residence in Malibu, California, where for 40 years she owned several properties, including a horse ranch and beach houses.
In June 2009, Newton-John and second husband John Easterling purchased a new $4.1 million home in Jupiter Inlet, Florida. In 2013, a contractor named Christopher Pariseleti committed suicide on the estate, which at the time was up for sale. Following the death on the premises, the property lingered on and off the market for two years but was eventually sold in 2015 to a Swedish advertising executive for $5.1 million.
In 2015, the couple purchased a $5.3 million, 12-acre horse ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley outside Santa Barbara. It was offered for sale in 2019 but not sold, and she was living there at the time of her death.
In 2019, Newton-John sold her 187-acre Australian farm, which she had owned for nearly 40 years and is located near Byron Bay in New South Wales. The Dalwood estate sold for $4.6 million; in 1980, Newton-John had paid $622,000 for the property, which had additional land adjoined in both 1983 and in 2002.
When asked in 2017 whether she considered herself to be a British, Australian or American citizen, she said, "I am still Australian."
Illness and death[]
In May 2017, it was announced that Newton-John's breast cancer had returned and had metastasis to her lower back. Her back pains had initially been diagnosed as sciatica. She subsequently revealed this was actually her third bout with breast cancer, as she had a recurrence of the disease in 2013 in addition to her initial 1992 diagnosis. With the 2017 recurrence, the cancer had spread to her bones and progressed to stage IV. Newton-John experienced significant pain from the metastatic bone lesions and had spoken of using cannabis oil to ease her pain. She was an advocate for the use of medical cannabis; her daughter Chloe owns a cannabis farm in Oregon.
On 8 August 2022, Newton-John died from said breast cancer at her home in the Santa Ynez Valley of California. She was 73. Coincidently the date was also the 42nd anniversary of the release of Xanadu. Tributes were paid by John Travolta, Frankie Valli, Barbra Streisand, Nicole Kidman, Elton John, Delta Goodrem and the Prime Minister of Australia Anthony Albanese.
The State of Victoria offered to hold a state funeral for Newton-John, which her family has accepted, though they plan to have her body interred at her ranch in California.
Shows appeared[]
- Celebrity Sweepstakes
- The Apprentice
- Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
- RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under
- Dancing with the Stars