Olivia and The Good and Bad News
Young and stunningly attractive, singer Olivia Newton-John has made news, good and otherwise in the past year.
The good news a couple of hit records and being voted Britain’s top girl singer. The not-so-good news her announcement that her much - publicised engagement to former Shadows pop guitarist Bruce Welch was over.
Following the split, Welch was taken to hospital suffering from a drugs overdose. Yet Olivia’s reaction to all this has been a repeated: “No comment,”
Sue Davies asked her why just before she travelled to London’s Prince of Wales Theatre where she relaxing in the black velvet trouser suit with the lucky gold 21st birthday key she always wears hanging round her neck.
“We used to wear jeans and desert boots and hessian jackets. We played in a coffee lounge. While I was singing there someone suggested I should go in for a talent contest, which I did and won a trip to England.”
Double act
Olivia teamed up with another girl singer to form a double act, then joined the ill fated pop group Toomorrow and made the film of the same name.
“And we all know what happened to them,” she grinned wryly. “It was a shame but it was good experience.”
Olivia’s father, now remarried, still lives in Australia. But her mother hand her sister now live in England, and Olivia locks on this country as her home “because it’s where my work is.”
On the face of it, she comes from an academic family, although she claims that there are ties with the world of entertainment.
“My father is a professor of German, but he has a beautiful operatic voice and he was an actor. My sister is an actress, and my brother is a doctor, but he plays the guitar and acts as as well.”
“I’m very keen on pop music at the moment. I’ve been established only a short time and I don’t quite know where I’ll end up. I do think about the future, but I tend to let it just evolve.”
When she isn’t working, Olivia likes to listen to the music of some of her favourite artists, Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley, and she also catches up on housework.
Olivia featured in Sacha Distel tour programme.