Olivia Newton-John

Before the world knew her as Sandy from Grease, Olivia Newton-John was a Cambridge-born child whose life soon crossed continents. Born on 26 September 1948 to Brinley “Brin” Newton-John and Irene Helene Born, she came from a family marked by scholarship, war, and migration. Her mother’s German-Jewish academic family had come to the UK in 1933 to escape the Nazi regime; her maternal grandfather was Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born. Her father, born and raised in Wales, had served as an MI5 officer on the Enigma project at Bletchley Park and later became headmaster of the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys.

In early 1954, when Newton-John was five, her family emigrated to Melbourne, Victoria, aboard the SS Strathaird. Her father worked at the University of Melbourne as a professor of German and master of Ormond College, and the family attended church while he headed the Presbyterian college. She attended Christ Church Grammar School in South Yarra and University High School in Parkville. As a teenager, she first imagined becoming a vet, but turned toward performance after doubting she could pass the science exams. At 14 she formed a short-lived all-girl group, Sol Four, and by 1964 her acting had been noticed in a school production of The Admirable Crichton.

Australian television gave Newton-John her first public platform. She appeared on local shows including Time for Terry, HSV-7’s The Happy Show, and The Go!! Show, where she met singer Pat Carroll and future producer John Farrar. In 1965, she won a talent contest on Sing, Sing, Sing, hosted by Johnny O’Keefe, performing “Anyone Who Had a Heart” and “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.” Her prize was a trip to Great Britain, which she was at first reluctant to take. Her mother encouraged her to broaden her horizons, and Newton-John eventually went, recording her first single, “Till You Say You’ll Be Mine,” in Britain for Decca Records in 1966.

From those early stages, Newton-John became one of the best-selling music artists of all time, with more than 100 million records sold, and the highest-selling female Australian recording artist of all time. Her signature recordings included “I Honestly Love You,” which won the Grammy for Record of the Year in 1974, and “Physical,” Billboard’s highest-ranking Hot 100 single of the 1980s. Other major hits ranged from “If Not for You,” “Let Me Be There,” and “Have You Never Been Mellow” to “Magic,” “Xanadu,” and “Twist of Fate.” She earned four Grammy Awards, a Daytime Emmy Award, nine Billboard Music Awards, six American Music Awards, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and induction into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

Her most famous screen role came in 1978, when she starred opposite John Travolta in Grease. The film became the highest-grossing musical film at the time, and its soundtrack remains one of the world’s best-selling albums. It produced two major duets with Travolta, “You’re the One That I Want” and “Summer Nights,” as well as her solo “Hopelessly Devoted to You.” Newton-John also appeared in the 1980 film Xanadu, whose music included “Magic” and “Xanadu” with the Electric Light Orchestra. In later years, she was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia in 2006 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2020.

Newton-John faced breast cancer three times, and she became an advocate and sponsor for breast cancer research. In 2012, the Olivia Newton-John Cancer & Wellness Centre opened at the Austin Hospital in her home town of Melbourne; in 2015, it was renamed the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre. She also supported environmental and animal rights causes. When she said, “Once you face your fear, nothing is ever as hard as you think,” it sounded less like a slogan than a sentence earned through public work, illness, and persistence. She died on 8 August 2022, leaving songs, film moments, and words that still meet people in moments when courage has to be practical.