Vale ONJ - The Australian

ONJ Vale
By Andrew McMillen

A fortuitous dinner party meeting with a Hollywood Producer is part of the story of Olivia Newton-John's ascent from British born Australian singer to international stardom. Ten albums deep into her career as a country music singer at the time, the artist was 28 when cast in the film that would change her life

Another Melbourne singer was the go-between that night in 1977, Helen Reddy - best known for her 1972 anthem I Am Woman and among the first Australian pop artists to make it big in the US - hosted the Los Angeles dinner party whose guest list included Alan Carr then producing a film adaptation of the Broadway musical Grease.

During the evening Carr came to realise that in the young singer he had met the perfect Sandy Olsson - a character whose transition from innocent teenager to black-cad greaser is influenced by John Travolta's Danny Zuko. I owe a lot ot Helen, and to her pioneering, and to her friendship, and to that dinner, Newton-John later noted.

With her singing, acting and dancing in the co-starring role Newton-John created herself as a true screen triple-threat. Grease was among the most popular films of 1978 as was the soundtrack, which sold 525,000 copies within six months in Australia and 25 million copies worldwide. The soundtrack paired off Newton-John and Travolta on Summer Nights and You're The One That I Want - the biggest selling duet of all time - as well as her standout vocal performance Hopelessly Devoted To You. The two latter songs were written and produced by long-time collaborator John Farrar.

In the film's final scene she is smoking a cigarette while wearing a leather jacket and dark sunglasses, a pose that allowed Newton-John to pivot from being a sweet singer of country ballads into an artist with more edge. My image had been so white bread, so milkshake and Grease was a character to do something different, she later reflected. I didn't want to be 40 years old and still be the girl next door.

Notwithstanding her iconic turn as Sandy, further attempts to branch out as an actor were panned by critics, including the 1980 box office flop Xanadu, a musical dismissed by a Variety critic as stupendously bad and a film whose only salvage is the music.

Indeed, Xanadu's platinum-certified soundtrack was led by Magic another Farrar written single that spent a month at number 1 in the US. But it was her next hit that would become her biggest - and raunchiest.

I took you to an intimate restaurant. then to a suggestive movie, she sang in the opening verse of Physical. There's nothing left to talk about, unless it's horizontally. Tina Turner had been offered Physical but baulked at the lyrics.

Released in 1981, the title track of her 12th studio album coincided with the beginning of the music television boom, and its accompanying video cleverly subverted that song's overtly sexual lyrics by featuring the singer and several unfit men working out, with the blue eyed star memorably clad in a white leotard, purple tights, blue top and white headband. in its closing scenes the out of shape men transform into buff specimens who walk out fo the gym holding hands.

Physical, written by Terry Shaddick and Brisbane raised Steve Kipner spent 10 weeks at number 1 in the US where it was 1982's top selling single, while its video won a Grammy award. Newton-John's fourth, following wins for best female country vocal performance, record of the year and best female vocal performance over 1973-74. The album cover, featuring an image shot by Herb Ritts, is thought to have influenced Madonna's 1986 album True Blue.

Grease proved to be so important for me, Newton-John told a reporter in 1990. It meant I could have a hit movie with hit songs and a new image. Suddenly if I wanted to be outrageous I could. Had it not been for Grease I don't know if I ever could have gotten away with Physical.

From a young age, Newton-John was entranced by music. She was born the youngest of three children in Cambridge, England, in 1948, and the family moved to Australia in 1953 when her father Bryn Newton-John - an academic of Welsh descent who taught German - was appointed master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne.

Her mother, Irene, remained in Melbourne following a separation in the later 1950s, while Bryn moved to Adelaide to take up another academic position. Their second daughter found peace in music and writing poetry, which led to writing her first sing with a family friend when she was on the cusp of becoming a teenager.

Its lyrics began "q>Why, oh why did you go away from me? It seems like years to me. Why does it have to be? My heart is a-breaking. Cause you've been a-taking, the love you said was meant for me.

Looking back those are pretty heavy lyrics for 12, Newton-John wrote in her 2018 memoir Don't Stop Believin'

From that composition it was two years before she began performing at Brummel's, a coffee shop in inner Melbourne. It was run by her brother in law Brian Goldsmith, the husband of older sister Rona. The Goldsmith's daughter is actor singer Tottie Goldsmith.

I'd go down to watch some of the performers play and sing Newton-John told The Australian Women's weekly in 2004. I don't think Mum was all that keen on me being there but because Brian was running the place, she thought it'd be okay.

There was a guitar player there, Hans George, and I started getting up with him to do some harmonies. Not long after three friends and I started a singing group and we used to play some of the jazz clubs around town.

The group was named the Sol Four, soon the singer began stepping out as a soloist in clubs and coffee lounges, where she sang folk songs. In 1964, the 16 year old appeared in a televised talent quest hosted by Johnny O'Keefe named Sing Sing Sing where her first performance was the Burt Bacharach song Anyone Who Had A Heart.

Newton-John won first prize - a trip to Britain - but it took considerable pressure from her mother, who had become her manager to board the plane.

I was never really an ambitious person. A lot of other people were ambitious for me. she said in 1990. My sister believed in me and my mother believed in me. I entered that contest for fun. I never thought I'd win. But before I knew it, I had indeed won, and I was still in school with choices to make. I suppose everything just fell into my lap. In time she became one of the world's most successful singers. First known for her breathy, delicate interpretations of country ballads such as Bob Dylan's If Not For You (her version based on the George Harrison arrangement from his first post Beatles solo album) which was released in 1971.

She didn't like Dylan's singing, nor his version of If Not For You, but she was a Beatles fan and Harrison pop-like reworking attracted her. Later she turned towards an adult oriented rock style following Grease.

Her co-starring role with Travolta was to be her only screen hit in no small part owing to their chemistry (the paid maintained they were never romantically involved in real life). To have been part ofa movie that's become a classic that's all right, because acting was not my main thing, she told Who Weekly in 2000. I was just lucky to be part of it.

In 1986, the artist became a mother. Her only child, Chloe rose, was born during her first marriage to American actor Matt Lattanzi, which ended in divorce in 1995.

A foray into a sportswear business named Koala Blue which she helped to create and finance in 1982 - a year after the success of Physical- ended badly. At its peak the company achieved sales of more than $25 million annually, with 49 stores opening on four continents but the chain filed for bankruptcy in 1991

Newton-John blamed the economic recession but her investors saw it differently, citing poor management, shoddy merchandise and later deliveries. It was depressing at the time, but you can't dwell on the past, she told Who Weekly. I learned a lot of things. Like don't do it again.

In July 1992 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I draw strength from the millions of women who have faced this challenge successfully, she wrote in a statement at the time. This has been detected early because I've had regular examinations, so I encourage other women to do the same. I am making the information public myself to save inquiring minds 95 cents she wrote, referring to the National Enquirer, an American supermarket tabloid that thrived on celebrity gossip.

Newton-John became an Australian citizen in September 1994 - although she continued to live in the US- and her willingness to speak up about her diagnosis made her perhaps the nation's most visible survivor of breast cancer.

In a letter to The Australian Women's weekly published in February 1993, her positivity shone through Dear readers, I am feeling very positive about the future, and I know that I am going to recover fully from my breast cancer and live a long and full life, she wrote. I want to let other women in my situation know that it is possible to win when you find yourself with breast cancer, and that a positive attitude is very important - maybe the most important things yo help overcome this diagnosis.

In 1998, she toured Australia with singers John Farnham and Anthony Warlow in a concert named The Main Event. A live recording from this tour went on to win an ARIA award for highest selling Australian album in 1999. She performed Date To Dream with Farnham at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, while in 2002 she was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. There are not many jobs you can do that you enjoy as much now as you did the first day you began, and for that I feel very spoilt, she told journalist Sue Smethurst that same year. I look at my life and think I'm totally blessed.

In a devastating turn of events her nine year relationship with Patrick McDermott ended with his disappearance off the coast of Los Angeles during an overnight fishing trip at sea in 2005. He was 48.

I think there will always be a question mark, Newton-John told The Australian Women's Weekly in 2009. It's a mystery, nobody really knows. Even though the US Coast Guard has closed the case and considers him missing at sea, I don't think I will ever really be at peace with it. I remember moments during that period of time when I would look out the window and see the sun and the birds, and think that one day this will pass. You hope that anyway because at the time it feels like it never will - but it does.

Newton-John did find love again, and married her second husband American businessman John Easterling in 2008, once on a mountain outside the Peruvian city of Cusco and again in a civil ceremony in Jupiter Island, Florida.

Her name lives on in the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre, which opened at Melbourne's Austin Hospital in 2012. I had reservations about naming the centre after myself, she said in 2002. But my daughter Chloe said If it's going to help people, why not?

Newton-John was a doting mother to Chloe and supported her through anorexia and other problems but protected her privacy by rarely commenting in public about those struggles. She said in a 2016 interview It's hard to be the child of a person who is in the limelight - I understand that - there is privilege but there are also other things that come along with that.

It was with her old colleague Farnham that the singer performed for the final time on Australian shores in February 2020, as part of the Fire Fight fundraiser concert before about 70,000 people at Sydney's ANZ Stadium. Together they sang a stirring version of Two Strong Hearts, a hit from his 1988 album Age of Reason that the duo had performed together during the Main event tour.

In introducing his friend, Farnham made a fuss of emphasising her new honorific, as the singer had recently become Dame Olivia Newton-John for her services to charity, cancer research and entertainment, as part of the Queen's New Year honours list.

Her cancer returned in 2013, and again in 2017. With these challenging reprises, the woman whose voice delighted millions of the world's music fans was much better equipped to face her second and third test, as that first experience in 1992 - and her mother's death in 2003 - gave her a new perspective on a life well-lived.

No one escapes loss encroaching on their life, that is part of their journey, Newton-John told The Australian Women's Weekly in 2004 And you know what? Instead of making me unhappy, it made me want to seize the day. It makes you appreciate the moments you have with each other because life is so fleeting.

When you watch someone you love go, you realise how transient it all is, and how important it is to appreciate the moment.

Newton-John is survived by Easterling, her daughter Chloe Lattanzi and her siblings Toby and Sarah Newton-John.

Let Me Hear Your Body Talk: an Olivia Newton-John playlist

Olivia Newton-John has left behind an impeachable and far reaching musical legacy. Her first breakthrough hit came with her debut 1971 album If Not For You, the start of a long-time collaboration with songwriter and producer John Farrar. The record was a compilation of covers of songs from artists of the 1960s and early 70s. The lead single and title track, a Bob Dylan cover peaked at number 6 in the UK in 1971. In 1973 she won a Grammy award for her song Let Me be There and thereafter enjoyed several years as a pure and wholesome soft rock sweetheart until, in 1978, along cam grease and everything changed. Here we sample eight definitive ONJ songs.

Physical

The song that captured the decade. Turned down by Rod Stewart and Tina Turner, it was the biggest quantifiable hit of Newton-John's career. It was also the biggest song of the entire 19802 decade. It spent 10 weeks at number 1 on the Billboard charts in late 1981 and early 1982, despite being banned by some radio stations. It has been covered by everyone from Kylie Minogue to Sophie Ellis Bextor and Delta Goodrem. Doja Cat and SZA borrowed the melody for their 2021 song Kiss Me More and Dua Lipa interpreted the lyric let's get physical on her 2022 hit Physical. The vamped-up activewear clad music video defined music video aesthetics for decades.

Xanadu

The musical fantasy Xanadu was objectively a turkey but for those who aren't afraid of letting joy into their life, it's glorious cheesy and worth revisiting. The movie features roller dancing with a foxy cyborgian Olivia Newton-John and eternal song and dance man Gene Kelly (it was Gene's final time dancing on screen). Neon everything and, most significantly, a smashing soundtrack collaboration between Newton-John and Britain's Electric Light Orchestra. I'm Alive, Don;t Walk Away, All Over The World and the fantastically flighty Magic are the best tracks from the record. The soundtrack went double platinum, it was the fifth most popular soundtrack of 1981 and Magic commanded Billboard's number 1 spot for four weeks.

Hopelessly Devoted To You

But now there's no way to hide since you pushed my love aside - I'm outta my head, hopelessly devoted to you. This is simply one of the most affectingly saccharine perfectly sung love ridden ballads ever. The crown jewel of the Grease soundtrack. A moppish and squeaky clean Sandy singing Hopelessly Devoted To You, captured the life or death stakes of love as a teenager. The song peaked at number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned Grease its sole Oscar nomination for best original song.

Two of a Kind

This song is perfect. Following the success of Grease Newton-John reunited with John Travolta for the 1983 film Two of a Kind. The film was a bomb but the soundtrack was a blockbuster. Two of a Kind is a blizzard of flamboyant synth, propped up with production by David Foster. It's gonna be a strange twist of fate. Telling me that heaven can wait. Telling me to get it right this time. Life doesn't mean a thing, without the love you bring.

I Love You, I Honestly Love You

This was Newton-John's first number 1 single in the US and Canada, off her fourth studio album Long Live Love. A lachrymose ballad about unrequited love where emotions verge on operatic If we had both been born in another place and time, this moment might be ending in a kiss - oh the drama!

Let Me Be There

Following stints with various teenage music groups, she released her debut album Let Me Be There in 1973. The album's country indebted title track was her first top ten single in the uS, peaking at number 6. It controversially won her a Grammy award for best female country vocalist.

Banks of the Ohio

The 19th century murder ballad in which a woman rejects a marriage proposal and is subsequently murdered by a river bank has been covered by Joan Baez, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Arlo Guthrie. There's something about the doe eyed innocence of 1970s Olivia that makes it haunting.

Soul Kiss

The Soul Kiss album was Olivia at her sexual music peak. The title track, a thinly veiled moody ode to oral sex, apparently, Well I get down on my knees (and thank you baby). Get down on my knees.

How The US Became Hopelessly Devoted

By Cameron Stewart, page 5

Three years ago, on a bright blue Los Angeles afternoon, Olivia Newton-John gathered 30 of her closest friends and family to watch what she described as one of the most important moments of her life.

By that stage, her cancer had returned for the third time and Australia's best known and most loved singer knew the road ahead would be tough.

She had enjoyed fame in the US beyond her wildest dreams but on this day in June 2019, Australia had come to her - to publicly thank its favorite daughter, perhaps for the last time for her work as a singer, actor and philanthropist.

The then 70 year old dressed in a white suit, stood up and flashed that smile as Australia's highest honour the Companion of the Order of Australia, was placed around her neck in a backyard ceremony in LA.

Newton-John bowed to the small crowd and then shouted Woohoo! throwing her hands in the air. Thank you for this gorgeous medal. I'll continue to do the best for the country I love, she said. Despite her best efforts she then began to cry.

It was a heartfelt moment that spoke volumes about Newton-John. Despite her fame in America, Australia was as dear to her heart on the day she died as it was when she moved to the US all the way back in 1975.

So while the outpouring of grief upon hearing of her death came from around the world, it was Australia and the US - the two countries she loved the most - that have been grieving her loss the hardest.

In the US, Newton-John's death was headline news, with prominent stories in every major newspaper and her hits, especially form grease, played on radio, TV and social media across the country. Within hours bouquets of flowers covered her star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Legendary American singers from Barbra Streisand to Dionne Warwick paid tribute, along with Grease co-star and close friend John Travolta who signed his tribute Your Danny, your John.

Most Americans can name only a handful of Australians, but the three they can almost always name are Olivia Newton-John, Paul Hogan and Greg Norman.

When The New York Times published a lukewarm obituary saying Newton-John's biggest claim to fame was being likeable more than 600 angry readers sent in comments praising Newton-John and savaging the newspaper I have adored her more than any other celebrity in my 50 years. She graced this world with her presence, wrote Crystal from Colorado.

It feels like my youth just died, wrote Gretchen from Alexandria in Virginia.

The enduring success of Grease, the highest grossing musical ever at the time ensured Newton-John remained well known in the US even after her career began to wane in the mid-1980s.

In 1984 she married actor Matt Lattanzi with whom she had her daughter Chloe Rose, nut they divorced in 1995 three years after Newton-John was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She then met cameraman Patrick McDermott. in 2005 although the US coastguard said it believed he had drowned, tabloid magazines reported rumours he had faked his own death, a claim that has never been proven.

Since 2008 Newton-John was married to John Easterling, a businessman who grew medical marijuana as part of her cancer therapy. Although Newton-John continued to perform after 2000, she invested more of her time and money helping cancer research founding the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre in Melbourne.

When she passed away at her ranch in south California on Monday, Mr Easterling described her as a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years sharing her journey with breast cancer.

Yet in the US it was a performer that she will be remembered. As The Washington Post put it She sang for presidents and a pope, the sick and the disabled and promoted music as a form of spiritual therapy.

Among an avalanche of love from readers of the NYT Alan from Pittsburgh put it well She was an absolute star to the girls who were just becoming teens in the 1980s. Free of politics and prejudice, we may never see those days again.