Olivia Newton-John

‘I’ve Had an Amazing Career. I Still Wonder at It Myself and Go, “i Don’t Know How I Did This”’

- Michelle Davies

Next year marks the 40th anniversary of Grease – the hit that made Newton-John a star – and she refuses to let her cancer battle stop her from touring to celebrate Fourteen-year-old Olivia Newton-John was not impressed. The vocal coach her mother had booked lessons with was the best in their city, but he was trying to mould her into an opera singer when her passion was pop. Determined to do it her way, she walked out of their sessions in 1962 – and within four years had recorded her first single. ‘I wouldn’t sing anything I hated. I have to like it, or I wouldn’t sing it,’ she recounted later. And it paid off. Today, Newton-John is a world famous singer who has sold more than 100 million records and starred in one of the most successful film musicals of all time – Grease. Next year marks the film’s 40th anniversary, and Newton-John and co-star John Travolta are planning the ultimate reunion to inspire a new generation of fans.

Newton-John was born on 26 September 1948 in Cambridge, England, the youngest of three children. The family emigrated to Australia when she was five, when her father, Brinley or ‘Bryn’, was appointed dean of the University of Melbourne’s Ormond College. Given her family pedigree, it seemed inevitable that she would be wise beyond her years from an young age. Her grandfather was a Nobel Prizewinning physicist whose best friend was Albert Einstein, her father was a Second World War Enigma code breaker. But it was clear early on that her aptitude was for singing, not science – at 15 months old, she could recognise musical notes and imitate them; by two, she was pitch perfect.