I still can't believe it
The girl who went from Melbourne to a Malibu beach ranch and a million dollars talks to Pat Bowring in Melbourne.
Olivia Newton-John, a millionairess at the age of 27, is on a working visit to Australia the first since 1973 when she performed at a Sydney club to the accompaniment of poker machines.
That was while she was still on the verge of superstardom.
She likes coming back to Australia, she said. “Every time I come back. I love it. I feel very comfortable in Australia”.
is “I’d be happy to live here, but at the moment America is where my work is,” she said.
She moved to the U.S. in 1974, after the workload in that country began to outweigh that in Britain, where she’d been living.
Home is a four-acre (about two hectares) a ranch in Malibu, very private beach area north of Los Angeles where her neighbors include some of America’s top entertainment people.
In February the makers of Glen Campbell’s television show decided to film a special episode in Australia.
born Although Olivia was in Cambridge. England she came to Australia with her father when she was five.
She became the obvious choice to act as official guide for the program. As she said. “I’m accepted in the U.S. and lived a long time in Australia”.
“I love the idea,” she said in the warm, soft voice you would expect after seeing her and hearing her records.
Although usually reticent about her financial affairs, she admitted: “Yeah, well I guess I am a millionairess.”
It’s no guess. Her her royalties from record sales would put into the millionairess class, and there are the fees of up to $A100.000 for appearances in resorts such as Las Vegas and Reno.
In Australia she has sold more than 330,000 albums and in Sydney last week was presented with 22 gold albums and four platinum.
She has only the vaguest idea how many records she has sold in the U.S. the world’s biggest pop market.
“I know all my singles have gone gold and so have all my albums. Some have gone platinum.” she said…
The latest gold album in her collection in the U.S. is for her new album “Come On Over” number five on the Cashbox magazine country album chart and number 15 on the Top 100 Albums chart.
Olivia’s father is Welsh and her mother is the daughter of a Nobel Prize winning physicist. She was brought up in Melbourne, where her mother now lives, and was educated at the exclusive Christ Church Grammar school Punt Road, South Yarra and later at University High.
Olivia first went overseas at 16, in February 1965. She teamed up with Pat Carroll who left Australia in April the same year and the two performed as a duet.
Photo caption: Olivia with Glen Campbell during a break in the filming of his Australian TV special.
More from Glen Campbell’s TV special.