The Gentle One - unknown mag

Olivia Newton-John, although still a very young woman, is already a show-business veteran of long standing. She has been involved in music, striving for perfection in her career since her very early teens. Yet she has always managed to retain her gentle manner.

Born in Cambridge. England and raised Melbourne. Australia, Olivia first became interested in singing and dancing early in school. With three other girl friends, she formed the group, the Sol Four, but had to disband the group when it began to interfere with school work.

However, Olivia was firmly set in her desires to be a performer, and although she came from a highly-academic family (her grandfather was Nobel prize winner, German physicist Max Born, and her father was headmaster of Ormond College in Melbourne), she decided to pursue her music career full time rather than going on to college.

As a result of winning her first talent contest at 16, she was sent to England. For the next two years she performed as part of a duo with another Australian girl, Pat Carroll, appearing in cabarets and on numerous shows on BBC television. Then when Pat's visa expired and she had to return to Australia, Olivia stayed on in England alone. Olivia's very first single (Bob Dylan's tune. If Not For You) recorded in England, made her an instant international success.

Her next single, Banks of the Ohio, won her the English Silver Disk and the Australian Gold Disk at the same time she was charming audiences throughout Europe while touring with the Cliff Richard Show. She then became a regular guest on the BBC-TV series, It's Cliff Richard, and continued to reap in music awards. In 1971 and 1972, she was voted as the Best British Girl Singer by the readers of pop weekly newspaper Record Mirror.

Olivia's world-wide prominence continued to grow in 1973 with her first Grammy as Best Country Vocalist for the song, Let Me Be There. Since then, her list of awards has multiplied each year, with two more Grammys in 1974, a total of eight American Music Awards since 1974, and multiple honors from Record World, Billboard, Cashbox, the Academy of Country Music. The Country Music Association, AGVA. ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), the People's Choice, just of mention a few.

However, Olivia has managed to keep a steady balance in her life, in addition to her hard work and the accolades which she has received. Recently, she has settled in Malibu, California where she can relax with her one cat, four dogs and five horses, because next to her love for music is her interest and love of animals. As a child, she once thought of becoming a veterinarian because of her devotion to animals, and one of her greatest priorities today, is her involvement with animal care and preservation of endangered species.

This year has already been a busy one for Olivia, having recently completed a critically acclaimed SRO tour of the eastern and mid-west areas of the United States, which culminated in her New York City debut appearance at the prestigious Metropolitan Opera House. With the cheers for this concert still ringing in her ears, Olivia was immediately off to conquer the hearts of the European television audiences.

She completed a six week TV tour which included her own BBC special in London, a special guest appearance on the Silver Jubilee television show, honoring Britain's Queen Elizabeth II's 25th year of her reign, her own TV special in Cologne, Germany, and guest appearances in Paris, Hamburg, and in London on the Val Doonican Show. In between all this frantic scheduling. Olivia was still able to record her current seventh MCA album, Makin' A Good Thing Better, again produced by the able John Farrar.

In the future are plans for a new movie, preferably in a film which will utilize her flair for musical comedy, another television special as a follow-up to her highly successful TV special on ABC in 1976, extensive tours of the Far East and Australia, and if there is any time left over, perhaps some quiet relaxation surrounded by good friends at home.