Profile In Courage
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Olivia Newton-John
Her grandfather was a Nobel Prize-winning German physicist, and her father was master of Melbourne's Ormond College. But in high school, British-born Olivia took a decidedly non-academic track: With three other girls, she formed her first band, the Sol Four.
A drop-out at 16, Newton John's breakthrough came in 1973 with her first American LP, Let Me Be There. Her countrified turn generated controversy: when she won the US Country Music Association's top female vocalist award in 1975, some association members quit in protest.
Olivia shed her Goody Two-shoes image in 1978 as John Travolta's girl in Grease (at the time the most profitable movie musical ever made). She then hotted up her image by getting Physical. Livvy changed hats again with a re-tail venture, Koala Blue, which went belly-up last year.
But these days her focus is on husband Matt Lattanzi and daughter Chloe, 6 (and on her health, see page 24). Headed for the record shops is Back to Basics, a retrospective of her 21-year career. The title, she says, is about "going back to singing, back to my roots".
Even after the chameleon-like changes, Newton-John remains the true-blue Girl Next Door.
How can we do anything but honestly love her?
