biography olivia newton john

Olivia Newton-John

(1948-2022)

Who Was Olivia Newton-John?

Early career and grammy wins.

Born on September 26, 1948, in Cambridge, England, Olivia Newton-John was raised in Melbourne, Australia. Perhaps best known for playing the squeaky clean Sandy in the movie musical Grease (1978), she got her start as a singer in her teens. Newton-John went to England in the mid-1960s and performed in clubs and on television.

Newton-John made a splash in the United States with her third solo album, Let Me Be There (1973), the title track winning a Grammy Award for best country female vocal performance. More awards and successful albums followed. She scored hits on the country and pop charts with "Have You Never Been Mellow" and "I Honestly Love You," which won the 1974 Grammy for record of the year.

Starring Role in 'Grease'

The release of the 1978 film adaptation of the successful Broadway musical Grease made Newton-John an international star. Set in the 1950s, the film told the story of two teenagers in love from two different social worlds. Newton-John portrayed the virtuous cheerleader Sandy opposite Travolta in the role of Danny, a rough-around-the-edges, but tender greaser. Audiences fell for the fun, catchy music, engaging storyline, and appealing performances. It became one of the most successful musicals in movie history.

'Xanadu' and 'Physical'

Unfortunately, Newton-John was unable to replicate her earlier success with her next film, Xanadu (1980). Attempting to cash in on two popular trends of the time—roller skating and disco—the movie bombed, though the soundtrack did well. The movie eventually gained a cult following. Newton-John hit the charts again with the song "Magic." She changed her image for her next album, Physical (1981), going for a more sexy, athletic look; it featured the hit single "Let's Get Physical."

While she continued making albums in the mid-1980s, Newton-John's musical career quieted down. She focused on other aspects of her life, including launching a chain of clothing stores called Koala Blue, and starting a family.

Battle with Cancer & Activism

Newton-John's life took a dramatic turn in 1992 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She battled the disease using chemotherapy and getting a partial mastectomy, and went on to record Gaia (1994).

Back in the spotlight for the 20th anniversary of the release of Grease , Newton-John released Back with a Heart in 1998. The album featured a new version of her classic hit "I Honestly Love You."

Newton-John tackled a subject very close to her heart with 2005's Stronger than Before . As a cancer survivor, she donated a portion of the proceeds to cancer research, and she recorded songs she thought would provide hope and courage to cancer patients and their families. It includes the track "Can I Trust Your Arms," which she co-wrote with her daughter, Chloe.

The following year, Newton-John made the album Grace and Gratitude available only through the drugstore chain Walgreens. Filled with music intended to help people relax, the recording was designed to complement a line of Newton-John's wellness products for women. Newton-John spent much of the fall of 2006 on tour to support her new album.Newton-John continued her advocacy, leading a walk along the Great Wall of China with other cancer survivors to raise funds to build the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre in Melbourne. She released A Celebration in Song (2008) in conjunction with the charity walk.

Newton-John reunited with Travolta for the album This Christmas (2012), which featured traditional seasonal hits like "Baby, It's Cold Outside." The following year, the artist received another cancer diagnosis, though she didn't reveal it publicly at the time.

In May 2017, Newton-John postponed a North American tour after learning that the cancer had returned and spread to her lower back. She underwent radiation combined with natural remedies and continues to have a positive outlook for her future. "I'm not going to be one of those statistics. I'm going to be fine. And I will probably deal with this in my life as an ongoing thing," she told Today . "I think that you can live with cancer like you can live with other things — if you take care of yourself."

In addition to her advocacy for breast health and cancer awareness, Newton-John actively supported various environmental causes and charities.

In September 2018, Newton-John revealed that she was battling cancer for the third time. The singer told Australia's Channel Seven she had a tumor at the base of her spine and was undergoing radiation, eating healthy and taking cannabis oil for pain relief. "I believe I will win over it," she said. "That's my goal."

Newton-John died on August 8, 2022.

Relationships

Newton-John married her Xanadu co-star Matt Lattanzi in 1984. They had a daughter, Chloe Rose, in 1986, and they later announced their separation in April 1995.

The artist suffered another hardship in June 2005. Her boyfriend of nine years, Patrick McDermott, 48, vanished when he failed to return from a fishing trip off the California coast. There were many investigations into McDermott's mysterious disappearance, with some claiming that he was still alive and living in Mexico.

Three years later, Newton-John married American entrepreneur John Easterling. The bride and groom attended a private Incan spiritual ceremony on a mountaintop at Cuzco, Peru, on June 21, 2008, followed by a second, legal ceremony on June 30 on Jupiter Island, Florida. Easterling is the founder and president of Amazon Herb Company, which sells botanical supplements from the rainforest. The couple met through a friend more than 15 years prior to their wedding but didn't become romantically involved until 2007, according to People magazine. They remained married until her death.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Olivia Newton-John
• Birth Year: 1948
• Birth date: September 26, 1948
• Birth City: Cambridge, England
• Birth Country: United Kingdom
• Gender: Female
• Best Known For: Singer-songwriter and actress Olivia Newton-John, known for playing Sandy in the musical film 'Grease,' battled breast cancer and helped raise awareness through her music.
• Astrological Sign: Libra
• Nacionalities
• Interesting Facts
• Olivia Newton-John's maternal grandfather was renowned physicist Max Born (1882-1970).
• Death Year: 2022
• Death date: August 8, 2022
• Death State: California
• Death Country: United States

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Olivia Newton-John Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/musicians/olivia-newton-john
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E; Television Networks
• Last Updated: August 8, 2022
• Original Published Date: April 2, 2014

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“I am committed and excited about educating and encouraging women to take a positive role in their breast health.” – Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John’s appeal seems to be timeless. With a career spanning more than five decades she is still a vibrant, creative individual adored by fans around the globe.   Born in Cambridge, England in 1948, the youngest child of Professor Brin Newton-John and Irene, daughter of Nobel Prize winning physicist, Max Born, Olivia moved to Melbourne, Australia with her family when she was five. Her first big break was winning a talent contest on the popular TV show, “Sing, Sing, Sing,” which earned Olivia a trip to London. By the age of fifteen she had formed an all-girl group called Sol 4 and, in 1963, Olivia was appearing on local daytime TV shows and weekly pop music programs in Australia. When she eventually took her prize-winning trip to London, she teamed up with her friend from Melbourne, Pat Carroll (now Pat Farrar), to create a double act, “Pat & Olivia,” and the duo toured army bases and clubs throughout the UK and Europe. Olivia cut her first single for Decca Records in 1966, a version of Jackie DeShannon’s “Till You Say You’ll Be Mine,” and in 1971, she recorded a cover of Bob Dylan’s “If Not For You,” co-produced by Bruce Welch and fellow Aussie and friend, John Farrar, whom she continues to collaborate with today.

Olivia’s U.S. album debut, “Let Me Be There,” produced her first top ten single of the same name, with Olivia being honored by the Academy Of Country Music as “Most Promising Female Vocalist” and a Grammy Award as “Best Country Vocalist.”   This proved to be only the beginning of a very exciting career. With more than 100 million albums sold, Olivia’s successes include four Grammy Awards, numerous Country Music, American Music and Peoples Choice Awards, ten #1 hits including “Physical,” (which topped the charts for ten consecutive weeks making it the #1 single of the ‘80s), and over 15 top 10 singles. In November 2015, Billboard Magazine listed “Physical” at #8 on their “Top 100 Songs Of All Time” list and in 2010 listed it as “The Sexiest Song of All Time.”   In addition, in 2015 Olivia was ranked #20 on Billboard’s “Greatest of All Time Hot 100 Artists” and most recently was ranked #7 on Billboard’s “Greatest Of All Time Hot 100 Women Artists.”

In 1978, her co-starring role with John Travolta in “Grease” catapulted Olivia into super-stardom and earned her a Golden Globe nomination as “Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical of Comedy.” This film’s best-selling soundtrack featured the duets “You’re The One That I Want” and “Summer Nights,” with Travolta, as well as her mega-hit, “Hopelessly Devoted To You.”   To date “Grease” remains the most successful movie musical in history.   Her other feature film credits include “Funny Things Happen Down Under,” “Toomorrow,” “Xanadu,” “Two Of A Kind,” “It’s My Party,” “Sordid Lives,” “Score: A Hockey Musical,” and “A Few Best Men.”

Throughout her career, the much-loved star, who danced with Gene Kelly in “Xanadu,” hosted the popular internationally syndicated “Wild Life” television show, was bestowed an O.B.E. (Order Of The British Empire) by Queen Elizabeth in 1979, has held many humanitarian causes close to her heart, particularly since the birth of her daughter Chloe in 1986. Olivia was named the first Goodwill Ambassador to the United Nations Environment Programme and in 1991, served as the national spokesperson for the Children’s Health Environmental Coalition (CHEC), which was founded after the tragic death of Chloe’s best friend from a rare childhood cancer.   Her devotion and shared commitment to CHEC’s (now Healthy Child, Healthy World) mission and goals enabled the organization to receive worldwide attention and support. (For more information visit www.HealthyChild.org).

Her charmed life has not been without its share of upset.   In the early 90’s, Olivia successfully overcame her first journey with breast cancer, which inspired her self-penned and produced album, “Gaia,” her most personal album reflecting upon her experiences with cancer. As a breast cancer “thriver,” Olivia has become increasingly well known and respected for talking openly about her personal journey with breast cancer and for promoting public awareness of the importance of early detection for more than 25 years.   This led her to announce her partnership with Austin Health and the creation of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Centre (ONJCWC) on the Austin Campus in her hometown of Melbourne, Australia.   In April 2008, Olivia led a team of fellow cancer survivors, celebrities and Olympians on a trek along the Great Wall of China and raised more than $2 million to find a new way to treat cancer and build the ONJCWC. After continuing the fundraising efforts and helping to raise nearly $200 million, the ONJCWC, opened in June 2012, and provides a comprehensive range of services and facilities for cancer treatment, education, training and research including a wellness center for the mind, body and spirit (ONJCancerCentre.org).   In 2014, Olivia was thrilled when the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute opened on the grounds of the ONJCWC. The strategic co-location of research laboratories and research-training within a clinical environment enables clinicians and researchers to work together to integrate clinical medicine with basic and translational cancer research for the ultimate benefit of cancer patients.  

Olivia continues to give back to the community generously and has been acknowledged many times by charitable and environmental organizations for her ongoing efforts, among them: the American Red Cross, the Environmental Media Association, the Women’s Guild of Cedar’s Sinai Medical Center, and the Rainforest Alliance and Concept Cure. In 1996 she created National Tree Day, which is responsible for planting more than 20 million trees in Australia. Most recently she co-founded One Tree Per Child, an international school initiative with the goal of having every child under the age of ten plant at least one tree.

In the new millennium, Olivia’s international recognition continues to grow.   She was invited by the Vatican on behalf of Pope John Paul II to perform at the “Jubilee Celebration for the Sick and Healthcare Workers” and, she was thrilled to perform at the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics to an estimated global viewing audience of four billion people.   Adding to this Olympic experience is what Olivia feels is one of her most memorable moments – the honor of carrying the Olympic Torch during the Olympic Torch Relay.

In 1983, as an entrepreneur with a desire to bring “everything Australian” to the world, she opened her first store, Koala Blue, with her friend and former singing partner, Pat Farrar.  Her passion for Australia was proven once again when Olivia and Pat launched their distinctly Australian wines under the iconic homegrown Koala Blue brand, to proudly bring the “taste of Australia” to the rest of the world in 2002. That year Olivia was also inducted into the prestigious Australian Music Hall Of Fame at the 16th Annual Aria Awards.  

In February 2005, along with her business partners Gregg Cave, Warwick Evans and Ruth Kalnin, Olivia opened Gaia Retreat & Spa in Byron Bay, New South Wales, Australia, as an ideal place to renew, refresh and restore. Gaia has received numerous awards since it opened including the Conde Nast Traveller Readers’ Spa Award Winner for the  Favourite Overseas Hotel Spa: Australasia & South Pacific ;  Best Health Retreat  award at the Gourmet Traveller Travel Awards, as well as TripAdvisor’s  Traveller’s Choice Award for Best Relaxation/Spa Hotels in South Pacific;  and the World Travel Award for  Australia’s Leading Spa Resort  and  Australia’s Leading Boutique Hotel,  among many others.  In 2014, Gaia also became a member of Virtuoso, the travel industry’s leading luxury network spanning over 26 countries and 9,000 travel advisors. TripAdvisor named Gaia #3 of the “Top 10 Celebrity-Owned Hotels in the World,” putting Olivia in the company of fellow hotel owners, Robert Redford, Bono and Robert De Niro.

Some of Gaia’s most recent accolades include the World Travel Awards 2019 ,   World’s Leading Retreat (Global Winner);  World Luxury Restaurant Awards 2019,   Luxury Spa Restaurant (Global Winner);  World Spa Awards 2019,  World’s Best Day Spa (Global Winner);  World Luxury Hotel Awards 2019,  Luxury Boutique Retreat   (Continent Winner);  World Luxury Spa Awards 2019,  Best Luxury Spa Retreat (Continent Winner)  and  Best Luxury Wellness Spa (Country Winner).   Gaia’s unique wellness & healing ethos has truly set it apart by offering guests total flexibility to personally tailor their retreat experience. Gaia’s award-winning Day Spa is “home” to some of Australia’s best healers and therapists, with leading wellness consultants, yoga instructors and fitness coaches available to meet the guests every need. Add to this Gaia’s highly acclaimed world class spa cuisine, which has received numerous awards, including, most recently, the 2019 World Luxury Restaurant Award for  Best Health & Wellness Cuisine (Global Winner). Olivia was also honored with the  Wellness Pioneer Award   2019  during the World Spa Awards gala event at the landmark Armani Hotel Dubai, receiving the top accolade for her outstanding contribution to the wellness industry.

In 2006, Olivia received the AO (Officer of the Order of Australia) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for her services to the entertainment industry as a singer and actor, and to the community through organizations supporting breast cancer treatment, education, training and research, and the environment. In 2010 Governor General Quentin Bryce invested Ms. Olivia Newton-John AO OBE as an Officer of the Order of Australia at a ceremony in Canberra. That year she also received the “Lifetime Achievement Award,” presented by friend John Travolta at the G’Day L.A. Gala.   

Olivia’s 2007 holiday recording, “Christmas Wish” features both new and classic holiday favorites and duets with such Grammy winners as Barry Manilow, Michael McDonald, David Foster and Jon Secada, to name a few, and was called one of the “Best Holiday CDs of 2007” by USA Today.   That year she also premiered her first concert special for Public Television – “Olivia Newton-John: Live From Sydney!” filmed at the historic Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony.   A two-hour DVD release of this stunning performance, featuring additional concert footage and Olivia’s personal tour of some of her favorite spots in Sydney, was released by Capitol / EMI in January 2008 and subsequently became a favorite concert special on PBS.   In 2008, Olivia began co-hosting and co-producing the PBS series, “Healing Quest” and, she reprised her film role of Bitsy Mae Harling from “Sordid Lives” in the LOGO series to rave reviews.  

In 2008, Olivia married “Amazon John” Easterling and, together they are spreading the word about the importance of preserving the Rainforest and the health values found in the botanicals of the Amazon. They currently serve on the Board of the ACEER Organization (Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research) to help the indigenous people of the Amazon gain ownership and title to their land.   In September 2009, they also joined forces with Prince Charles’ The Prince’s Rainforest Project to further stress the global importance of preserving the Rainforest.  

In 2010, Olivia appeared as herself in two episodes of the hit series, “Glee,” adding another Top 100 hit to her credits with a new version of “Physical” sung with Jane Lynch.   In October 2010 Olivia starred in the breast cancer docudrama “1 A Minute” and, the Canadian film “Score: A Hockey Musical.”   Her 2012 film, “A Few Best Men,” garnered her some of the best reviews of her film career. The soundtrack to the film features dance remixes of classic hits such as “Sugar Sugar” and “Daydream Believer” recorded by Olivia and remixed by some of the hottest club remixers in the world. In addition the CD reunited Olivia with her longtime producer and songwriter, John Farrar, on the single, “Weightless.”  

In addition to starring in films and on television and writing books and music, Olivia continued to spend time in the recording studio. Her healing CD, “Grace and Gratitude: Renewed” (2010), debuted at #2 on the Billboard Magazine New Age chart.   Billboard celebrated Olivia’s new music by saying, “Newton-John is soulfully committed to every word she sings, and fans will be taken by the plush arrangements, melodic warmth, and of course, the artist’s regal vocals.”

Olivia released her second book, LivWise: Easy Recipes For A Healthy, Happy Life (Murdoch Books) in Australia in 2011. (Her first book, A Pig Tale , an environmentally-themed story written for children, was released in 1993.) In LivWise , Olivia explains her belief in the importance of eating a healthy diet in order to maintain wellness and balance and, Olivia’s proceeds from the sale of the book benefit the ONJCWRC. In 2012, she reunited with John Travolta to release “This Christmas,” a holiday CD collection that was also a fundraiser for both the ONJCWRC and The Jett Travolta Foundation.   That year Olivia was also named one of Australia’s “National Living Treasures” by the National Trust of Australia, and in 2013 she was bestowed her own stamp as part of the “Australia Post Legends” stamp series.

In April 2014, Olivia began her residency at the Flamingo Las Vegas with “Summer Nights,” a musical journey through her career in movies and music. To coincide with the show, she released “Hotel Sessions” an EP collection of songs recorded in hotel rooms in Melbourne over a ten-year period with her nephew Brett Goldsmith. The CD is dedicated to her late sister Rona Newton-John, who was always supportive of Olivia and Brett working together. Due to the popularity of the Las Vegas show, a 2-CD set, “Summer Nights – Live in Las Vegas” was released.   The show, originally scheduled for one year turned into a hit, three-year concert residency that received acclaim from both critics and fans. Olivia was thrilled that a portion of every ticket sold to her Flamingo shows benefited the Wellness Programs at the ONJCWRC.

For Newton-John, 2015 proved to be a chart topping and award-winning year. She topped the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart with the #1 hit duet, “You Have to Believe,” with her daughter Chloe.   In April of 2015 Olivia toured arenas in Australia with fellow Aussie icon, John Farnham, with the aptly titled show, “Two Strong Hearts.”   A CD of highlights from this sold-out tour debuted at #1 on the Aria Album charts, where it remained in the top spot for three weeks. The CD went on to receive an Aria Award nomination and, the live DVD held the #1 spot on the Aria DVD chart for 10 weeks.  

In 2016 Olivia released two recording projects back to back.   The first, “LIV ON,” a collaborative, inspiring new CD with friends Beth Nielsen Chapman and Amy Sky is intended for those who wish to transcend loss while walking a journey toward new-found meaning and hope.   In addition, Olivia reunited with John Farnham for the holiday release, “Friends for Christmas,” which topped the Aria Chart.

In 2017 Olivia revealed the very personal news that her breast cancer had returned and metastasized to her sacrum. The outpouring of love and support from around the world prompted the following statement from Olivia: “I am really grateful for and touched by the worldwide outpouring of love and concern. Thank you. I am feeling good and enjoying total support from my family and friends, along with a team of wellness and medical practitioners both here in the US and at my Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia. I’m totally confident that my new journey will have a positive success story to inspire others!”

2018 proved to be a big year for Olivia. In addition to focusing on her health and recovery, Olivia joined John Travolta for a special Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences “Grease” 40 th Anniversary event to celebrate the milestone.   She also released “Hopelessly Devoted: The Hits” on SONY Music Australia and, recorded two duets with fellow Aussie Delta Goodrem, “Let Me Be There” and “Love Is a Gift,” for Goodrem’s ONJ tribute CD, “I Honestly Love You.”   Olivia also reunited in the studio with long-time friend, Sir Cliff Richard, for the duet “Everybody’s Someone,” their first recording together since 1995, for Richard’s new CD, “Rise Up.”

In May 2018, Olivia, who hails from a family of academics, was thrilled to receive an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia, in recognition of her significant and ongoing support of cancer research and holistic health, as well as her outstanding achievements in the entertainment industry.  

Immediately following in November 2018, it was announced that her Gaia Retreat & Spa claimed the coveted 2018 “Global Hotel of the Year” honor at an international gala ceremony which recognizes and honors the world’s finest hotels for their luxury offerings and delivery of exceptional guest services.

In February 2019 Olivia is proud to release the skincare range, Retreatment Botanics, inspired by the heart of Gaia Retreat & Spa. The natural, luxury formulas are Australian made, cruelty free, vegan, certified palm oil free by the Orangutan Alliance and contain powerful native extracts.  “We created a range you can take home and enjoy a Gaia Retreatment any time,” says Olivia.

In September 2018, Olivia released her deeply personal, best-selling memoir, “Don’t Stop Believin’,” on Penguin Books in Australia. The book tells Olivia’s story for the first time in her own words.   “I hope this story of my life from my early years up to today will bring some inspiration and positivity to the reader,” says Newton-John. “We all share so many experiences in our own unique way.”   “Don’t Stop Believin’” was released as both a hardcover and audio book in North America on Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster on March 12, 2019, and it debuted at #12 on the New York Times Best Sellers list, as well as #7 on the Publisher’s Weekly list.

2019 was a big year with Olivia receiving the appointment as a Companion (AC) of the Order of Australia (General Division) – the highest Australian honor, for her eminent service to community health, particularly people living with cancer, through support for medical research, and as a songwriter and performer. The Order of Australia is the principal means of recognizing  meritorious service of its citizens and outstanding members of the community at a national level.  

The 7 th annual Wellness Walk and Research Run benefiting the ONJCWRC was held in October 2019 and raised over $1 million to support both wellness and research programs.   The annual Wellness Walk and Research Run is now a global event, helping the ONJ Centre provide an environment that supports the whole person – body, mind and spirit – giving patients and their families the best chance to win over cancer.   

In November 2019 the Olivia Newton-John Julien’s Auction took place in Beverly Hills where Olivia’s famous black leather jacket and skin tight pants featured during “You’re The One That I Want” in “Grease” sold for more than $405,000, with 100% of the proceeds benefiting her Centre.   In a twist of pure kindness, the ultimate holiday “re-gift” happened when the buyer of her leather jacket surprised everyone by returning the jacket to Olivia, saying it belonged with her, “not in some billionaire’s closet.”   Newton-John plans to display the jacket at her ONJ Cancer Wellness & Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

Olivia also reunited with John Travolta for the “Meet ‘N’ Grease” Sing-A-Long movie events in West Palm Beach, Tampa and Jacksonville.   The reunion also included the film’s director, Randal Kleiser, and the original T-Birds, Kelly Ward, Michael Tucci and Barry Pearl.   Audiences had the chance to meet the two film stars, sing along with the famous film and then participate in a special Q&A session with Olivia and John.

The year ended with a major announcement and honor for Olivia in December 2019. Her Majesty the Queen named Olivia Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to music, cancer research and charity.

In November 2020, Olivia established the Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund, an independent charity sponsoring global research into plant medicine for cancer. These investments in new scientific research will educate patients and their caregivers about kinder options for treating cancer. The charity is committed to realizing a world beyond cancer. For more information visit ONJFoundationFund.org.

In February 2021 Olivia and her daughter Chloe reunited for a second single, “Window in the Wall” which debuted at #1 on the iTunes Music Video Chart and the Amazon A/C Chart.   Just a few months later Olivia scored another #1 hit on the Amazon A/C chart with “Put Your Head on My Shoulder,” a duet with music legend Paul Anka.   2021 will also mark the 40 th anniversary of her mega-hit, “Physical,” which spent 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard chart, making it the number one song of the 1980s.

With her current and ongoing projects and philanthropic endeavors, Olivia’s worldwide popularity is as strong as ever!   For more information visit OliviaNewton-John.com or follow her on Twitter @OliviaNJ or Instagram @TheRealONJ .

Olivia Newton-John (1948-2022)

• Music Artist

Music Department

IMDbPro Starmeter Top 5,000 865

• 21 wins & 26 nominations

Remembering Olivia Newton-John: 1948-2022

• Soundtrack ("Over The Rainbow")

• Olivia (as Olivia Newton John)

• Olivia Newton-John

• Olivia Newton-John (singing voice)

• Barbara Ramme

• Hope Gordon

• Olivia Newton-John (as Olivia Newton John)

• Bitsy Mae Harling
• 11 episodes

• Koala (voice)

• Jasmine Wilde
• performed by
• original songs

• In-development projects at IMDbPro

Personal details

• Apple Music
• Facebook Fan Page
• Olivia Newton-John Easterling
• 5′ 6″ (1.68 m)
• September 26 , 1948
• Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK
• August 8 , 2022
• Santa Ynez, California, USA (breast cancer)
• Spouses Amazon John Easterling June 30, 2008 - August 8, 2022 (her death)
• Chloe Lattanzi
• Parents Brinley "Bryn" Newton-John
• Relatives Rona Newton-John (Sibling)
• Other works TV commercial for charity association Planet Ark (Australia, 2002)
• 1 Biographical Movie
• 14 Print Biographies
• 1 Portrayal
• 7 Interviews
• 23 Articles
• 8 Pictorials
• 25 Magazine Cover Photos

Did you know

• Trivia On June 30, 2005, Newton-John's then-partner, a cameraman named Patrick McDermott , went missing after going on an overnight fishing trip on a sport fishing vessel out of San Pedro, California. He was located four years later in April 2009 by Dateline NBC (1992) investigators. Missing since July 2005, he was found in a Mexican beach town, living under the name of Pat Kim and working on a yacht which ferries tourists in and out of a marina near Sayulita, Mexico.
• Quotes There's a rumor going around that I'm Miss Goody-two-shoes from Australia. Well, that's a laugh. I'm really Miss Goody-two-shoes from England!
• Trademark Blonde hair and large blue eyes
• The Goddess
• Lovely Livvy
• Olivia Neutron-Bomb
• Olivia Newton
• Grease ( 1978 ) $125,000
• When did Olivia Newton-John die?
• How did Olivia Newton-John die?
• How old was Olivia Newton-John when she died?

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Pop icon Olivia Newton-John was the rare performer whose career flourished through different phases

Associate professor, Music Industry, RMIT University

Disclosure statement

Catherine Strong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

RMIT University provides funding as a strategic partner of The Conversation AU.

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Olivia Newton-John was a versatile artist with an appeal that spanned generations, and who played an important role in claiming a space for Australian popular culture on the world stage.

She was the rare performer whose career flourished through different phases, and who found success exploring many facets of her talent.

Born in Cambridge in 1948, Newton-John moved to Melbourne at age 6 (becoming one of a myriad of non-Australian celebrities wholeheartedly claimed by this country).

In her teens she started to build up her profile on the local performing circuits, also appearing on pop music television program The Go!! Show.

In the 1960s, Australian musical acts saw moving to the UK as a vital part of their career progression. Newton-John became part of the steady stream of expats pursuing their music in “the mother country” after winning a talent competition that provided her with tickets.

When her friend Pat Carroll joined her, the two found success touring as a pop duo, before visa troubles meant Carroll had to return to Australia.

This led to new opportunities for Newton-John as a solo artist. Her first album If Not For You (1971) was a success in the UK and Australia, establishing her as a household name in those countries – and leading to opportunities such as a performance at Eurovision representing the UK in 1974 (she lost to ABBA).

Her break in the US market came as she found a niche in the country music genre. Country/pop crossover songs such as Let Me Be There were huge hits, and in 1972 she won a Grammy for Best Country Female – the first of four Grammys she would win across her career.

Her move to the US in the mid-1970s was accompanied by a string of number one hits in that country, establishing her as an international superstar.

Life on the silver screen

Her star continued to rise with the release of the musical Grease in 1978.

Sandy established her as a genuinely iconic pop culture figure.

Grease was a huge box-office success, and produced a multi-million copy selling soundtrack. Tracks such as You’re the One That I Want and Summer Loving were not only hits in their own right at the time but have become embedded in our cultural memory, transcending generations with their appeal.

Grease was the peak of her movie career. Attempts to re-create the on-screen magic between herself and co-star John Travolta in Two of a Kind and the fantastical Xanadu (a personal childhood favourite) failed to gain traction with audiences or critics.

But her contributions to the soundtracks of these films – including Magic and Twist of Fate – still charted highly as her musical career stayed strong.

Read more: Conversing with the divine – why we still need our muses

Away from the spotlight

In the early 1980s she was seen as part of the “ Australian invasion ”, a period where Oz culture was particularly prominent on the international stage through acts such as Air Supply and the Little River Band.

Newton-John leaned into the moment. In 1983, she launched her Koala Blue boutique selling Australian fashion and cultural items, in collaboration with her previous singing partner Pat Carroll. The boutique lasted a little over a decade, during which time Newton-John had a family and put less focus on her music career.

A planned comeback in 1992 had to be put on hold when Newton-John was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly before beginning her tour.

Her journey with the disease inspired her to take up advocacy and fundraising work in this area. The Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre fundraises in various ways, including through events such as the annual Wellness Walk.

The return of Newton-John’s cancer in 2017, which would eventually lead to her death, also spelled the end of her touring career.

A lasting legacy

Newton-John leaves a legacy as a sweet girl-next-door type with a sublime voice, who embraced the country that claimed her as its own, but who also at times showed a more risqué side, such as in Sandy’s leather jumpsuit, or the cheeky video to the unapologetically sexual Physical.

She has already been recognised through awards and honours.

She has been inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame . In 2020 she was appointed a Dame in the Queen’s New Year honours list. She has also been a continuing part of the cultural conversation through appearances on pop culture staples such as Drag Race.

She remained down-to-earth and friendly, regularly turning up to events like the Wellness Walks to chat to participants and encourage them on.

Like many Australians, ONJ has been part of the soundtrack to my life – from arranging my own little performances to Xanadu in kindergarten, to singing along to the Grease megamix at school discos, to discovering her earlier work through my research much later in life – and many have benefitted from her non-musical work, too.

She will be missed but never forgotten.

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Olivia Newton-John, Pop Singer and ‘Grease’ Star, Dies at 73

She amassed No. 1 hits, chart-topping albums and four records that sold more than two million copies each. More than anything else, she was likable, even beloved.

By Jim Farber

Olivia Newton-John, who sang some of the biggest hits of the 1970s and ’80s while recasting her image as the virginal girl next door into a spandex-clad vixen — a transformation reflected in miniature by her starring role in “Grease,” one of the most popular movie musicals of its era — died on Monday at her ranch in Southern California. She was 73.

The death was announced by her husband, John Easterling, who did not give a specific cause in his statement, though he cited the breast cancer diagnosis she had lived with since 1992. In 2017, she announced that the cancer had returned and spread. For years she was a prominent advocate for cancer research, starting a foundation in her name to support it and opening a research and wellness center in metropolitan Melbourne, Australia. English-born, she grew up in Australia.

Ms. Newton-John amassed No. 1 hits, chart-topping albums and four records that sold more than two million copies each. More than anything else, she was likable, even beloved.

In the earlier phase of her career, Ms. Newton-John beguiled listeners with a high, supple, vibrato-warmed voice that paired amiably with the kind of swooning middle-of-the-road pop that, in the mid-1970s, often passed for country music.

Her performance on the charts made that blurring clear. She scored seven Top 10 hits on Billboard’s country chart, two of which became back-to-back overall No. 1 hits in 1974 and ’75. First came “I Honestly Love You,” an earnest declaration co-written by Peter Allen and Jeff Barry, followed by “Have You Never Been Mellow,” a feather of a song written by the producer of many of her biggest albums, John Farrar.

“I Honestly Love You” also won two of the singer’s four Grammys, for record of the year and best female pop vocal performance.

The combination of Ms. Newton-John’s consistently benign music — she was never a favorite of critics — and comely but squeaky-clean image caused many writers to compare her to earlier blond ingénues like Doris Day and Sandra Dee . “Innocent, I’m not,” Ms. Newton-John told Rolling Stone in 1978. “People still seem to see me as the girl next door. Doris Day had four husbands,” she said, yet she was still viewed as “the virgin.”

An entry into movies in 1978 aimed to put the singer’s chaste image behind her, starting with “Grease.” Her character, Sandy, transformed from a pigtailed square smitten with John Travolta’s bad-boy Danny to a gum-smacking bad girl. “Grease” became one of the highest grossing movie musicals ever, besting even “The Sound of Music.” Its soundtrack was the second best-selling album of the year, beaten only by the soundtrack for “Saturday Night Fever,” which also starred Mr. Travolta.

The “Grease” soundtrack spawned two No. 1 hits, including the manically lusty “You’re the One That I Want,” sung by the co-stars. The doo-wop romp “Summer Nights,” which they also sang, reached No. 5. (The other No. 1 single from the “Grease” soundtrack was the title song, sung by Frankie Valli.) A ballad Ms. Newton-John sang alone, “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” earned the film’s lone Oscar nomination, for best song.

Applying the evolution of her “Grease” character to her singing career, Ms. Newton-John titled her next album “Totally Hot,” and presented herself on the cover in shoulder-to-toe leather. The album, released at the end of 1978, went platinum, yielding the rock-oriented “A Little More Love” with the line, “Where did my innocence go?”

The album featured Ms. Newton-John singing in a somewhat more forceful voice. Though her sales dipped as the 1970s turned into the ’80s, by early in the decade she began the most commercially potent period in her career, peaking with the single “Physical,” which spent 10 weeks on Billboard’s top perch. Later, the magazine declared it to be the biggest song of the 1980s.

Olivia Newton-John was born on Sept. 26, 1948, in Cambridge, England, the youngest of three children of Brinley and Irene (Born) Newton-John . Her mother was the daughter of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born . Her Welsh-born father had been an MI5 intelligence officer during World War II and afterward served as headmaster at Cambridgeshire High School for Boys.

When Ms. Newton-John was 6, her family immigrated to Melbourne, Australia, where her father worked as a college professor and administrator. At 14, she formed her first group, Sol Four, with three girls from school. Her beauty and confidence soon earned her solo performances on local radio and TV shows under the name “Lovely Livvy.” On “The Go!! Show” she met the singer Pat Carroll, with whom she would form a duet, as well as her eventual producer, Mr. Farrar, who later married Ms. Carroll.

Ms. Newton-John won a local TV talent contest whose prize was a trip to Britain. While tarrying there, she recorded her first single, “’Til You Say You’ll Be Mine,” which Decca Records released in 1966.

After Ms. Carroll moved to London, she and Ms. Newton-John formed the duet Pat and Olivia, which toured Europe. When Ms. Carroll’s visa expired, forcing her to go back to Australia, Ms. Newton-John stayed in London to work solo.

In 1970, she was asked to join a crudely manufactured group named Toomorrow, formed by the American producer Don Kirshner in an attempt to repeat his earlier success with the Monkees. Following his grand design, the group starred in a science-fiction film written for them and recorded its soundtrack. Both projects tanked.

“It was terrible, and I was terrible in it,” she later told The New York Times.

Her debut solo album, “If Not for You,” was released in 1971, its title track a cover of a Bob Dylan song.

After some duds in the United States, Ms. Newton-John released the album “Let Me Be There” (1973), which led to a Grammy win for best female country vocal performance.

Two key changes in pop music boosted her career that decade: the rise of “soft rock” in reaction to the harder genres of the late 1960s, and the mainstreaming — some would say the neutering — of country music, also epitomized by stars like John Denver and Anne Murray.

The latter trend became an issue in 1974, after Ms. Newton-John was chosen female vocalist of the year by the Country Music Association over more traditional stars like Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. Protests led to the formation of the fleeting Association of Country Entertainers. Yet, after Ms. Newton-John recorded her “Don’t Stop Believin’,” album in Nashville in 1976, the friction eased.

The second phase of her career, which began with “Grease,” found further success through a duet with Andy Gibb, “I Can’t Help It,” followed by an attempt to expand her acting career with the 1980 musical film “Xanadu,” with Gene Kelly. While the movie floundered, its soundtrack went double-platinum, boasting hits like “Magic” (which commanded Billboard’s No. 1 spot for four weeks) and the title song, recorded with the Electric Light Orchestra.

A campy Broadway show based on the film opened in 2007 to some success.

Ms. Newton-John’s smash “Physical” also yielded the first video album to hit the market, with clips for all the album’s tracks. “Olivia Physical” won the Grammy in 1982 for video of the year.

She was paired again with Mr. Travolta in the 1983 movie “Two of a Kind,” an attempt to repeat the success of “Grease.” But the film disappointed even as its soundtrack proved popular, especially the song “Twist of Fate.”

Ms. Newton-John was named an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1979.

By the mid-80s, her career had cooled. For several years she cut back on work to care for her daughter, Chloe Rose, whom she had with her husband at the time, the actor Matt Lattanzi. They had met on the set of “Xanadu” and married in 1984; they divorced in 1995.

That same year, she met Patrick McDermott, a cameraman whom she dated, on and off, for the next nine years. In 2005, Mr. McDermott disappeared while fishing off the California coast. Three years later, a U.S. Coast Guard investigation said that the evidence suggested that Mr. McDermott had been lost at sea.

In 2008, Ms. Newton-John married Mr. Easterling, the founder of the Amazon Herb Company.

In addition to her husband, she is survived by her daughter, Chloe Rose Lattanzi; her sister, Sarah Newton-John; and her brother, Toby.

After learning she had breast cancer in 1992, Ms. Newton-John became an ardent advocate for research into the disease. Her Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund is dedicated to researching plant-based treatments for cancer, and she opened a cancer research and wellness facility under her name at Austin Hospital, outside Melbourne.

Despite her own treatments, she continued to release albums and tour but failed to make headway on the charts. And she continued to act in movies and on television.

In May 2017, she disclosed that her cancer had returned and that it had metastasized to her lower back. She published a memoir, “Don’t Stop Believin,’” in 2018.

To the end Ms. Newton-John firmly believed in her audience-friendly approach to music. “It annoys me when people think because it’s commercial, it’s bad,” she told Rolling Stone. “It’s completely opposite. If people like it, that’s what it’s supposed to be.”

An earlier version of this obituary referred incorrectly to the song “Summer Nights,” which Ms. Newton-John sang with John Travolta in “Grease.” It reached No. 5 on the Billboard pop singles chart, not No. 1.

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Australian icon Olivia Newton-John has died age 73. She won multiple Grammy Awards over a five-decade career, but she was also an advocate for cancer awareness after her own diagnosis in the 1990s.

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Olivia Newton-John - Biography

Olivia in 1966

Growing up in Australia

Olivia Newton-John was born in Cambridge, England on September 26th 1948; her family moved to Australia when she was 5. Her mother, Irene was German, daughter of the physicist Max Born, her father Brin, was Welsh, a professor of German at Cambridge and Melbourne. Despite the academic background, early on Olivia showed an interest in singing, forming a band called the Sol Four with some schoolfriends, and later on singing at her brother in law's coffee bar in Australia. She appeared in several Australian TV shows such as The Go Show as a teenager also starred in a movie Funny Things Happen Down Under which was forgettable apart from some early promise shown in Olivia's delightful rendition of "Christmas Down Under".

in Funny Things Happen Down Under

A talent contest hosted by the Australian Johnny O'Keefe offered Olivia the prize of a trip to England, and she took this up in 1965. Her first introduction to making records was a one-off single deal with Decca Records. The single, Till You Say You'll Be Mine/For Ever , is extremely rare though these two songs were available (Oct 1994) on the British compilation CD Pop Inside the 60's .

Pat and Olivia in London

with Bruce Welch

Things improved when Pat Carroll, a fellow Australian, arrived in the UK. Dreaming of stardom the two girls played pubs and clubs as the vocal duo imaginatively called "Pat and Olivia". New to the British music scene their initial hirings were not always a success - such as the duo's performance at Paul Raymond's Revue bar. They were somewhat taken aback by the scant attire of some of the other performers. Needless to say the duo who were dressed in high-necked frilly dresses were not asked back to what they later on discovered was a strip joint...

In 1968 Bruce Welch of the Shadows fell for Olivia and they became engaged, something which was not entirely without problems as he was married at the time...

Pat's visa ran out in December 1969 and she returned home. For Olivia, movie stardom beckoned as she was invited to join the band Toomorrow, which was to be Britain's answer to the Monkees. This manufactured group issued an eponymous album in 1970 to go with the film Toomorrow , but the public were not impressed and the movie closed quickly, leaving Olivia to concentrate on her solo music career.

Olivia was invited to be the resident star for Cliff Richard's highly successful TV show in 1972, and she was a regular live performer in London.

Olivia Newton-John's early career in the UK

On the Cliff Richard TV show

Bruce Welch arranged Olivia's first hit single, a cover of Bob Dylan's If Not For You. This single was Olivia's first taste of success in America, something she was to experience a lot more of in the next few years.

Olivia reached a turning point in her career with the release of Let Me Be There which charted at #6 in America. No longer engaged to Bruce Welch, John Farrar, another member of the Shadows, took up songwriting and arrangement for her and this was a successful team which was soon to take the United States by storm. John Farrar had known Olivia from the early days and he later married Pat Carroll, Olivia's erstwhile singing partner and future business partner.

While holidaying in 1974 in the South of France, Olivia met Lee Kramer, who had a successful business import/export business. The romance developed, and Lee was Olivia's boyfriend and manager for much of the rest of the decade.

Olivia and Lee Kramer

Eurovision 1974

Just before she moved to the United States to build on her burgeoning success there, Olivia represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. Both song and Olivia's costume on the night were selected by a poll of TV viewers, and the whole mess showed just what was wrong with vox pop artistic taste. A truly awful oompah - oompah song, Long Live Love was chosen, together with a long flowing baby-blue dress for the actual performance.

This time Olivia was up against strong competition - 1974 was the year that ABBA stole the show with a barnstorming performance of their song "Waterloo", which launched their international career. Olivia came fourth.

America calls

America beckoned and Olivia left England in 1975 to a rapturous welcome for her next album " Have You Never Been Mellow ". The title song charted at #1 and her next single from the album, Please Mr Please, reached #3. This was the start of a roll which continued throughout the 70s with a string of gold albums in the US. Olivia was to become a regular on shows like the Midnight Special, and in 1976 she had her own TV special by ABC - A Very Special Olivia Newton-John .

Her US audience had loved her for her soft and delicate delivery of ballads and country songs, and she treated them to a string of albums beautifully sung - Clearly Love , Come On Over , Don't Stop Believin , and Making a Good Thing Better . Olivia toured the United States with the album Clearly Love.

There she fulfilled a childhood ambition, keeping a number of dogs and horses on the property. As a child, she had not been able to keep many pets despite her love of animals. Her concern for animal welfare spilled over into her professional life when she refused to go to Japan until they amended tuna fishing practices to reduce the needless slaughter of dolphins in the nets.

Grease is the word

Musically, it seemed as if Olivia was at the peak of her career, gathering awards effortlessly. In Los Angeles, a producer was looking for a female lead to play opposite John Travolta in his forthcoming movie adaptation of the stage musical Grease. Olivia was not totally sure about playing in another movie and requested a screen test after she was asked to star. The scene was the drive-in and Olivia wowed Allan Carr. Released in June 1978, Grease went on to become one of the biggest selling musicals of all time and the Grease soundtrack album stormed the charts on both sides of the Atlantic. Her album, Totally Hot , also released in 1978 showed a new musical direction away from her early ballads to more upbeat rock. The album was a great success and Olivia toured America, Japan and Europe with it.

Totally Hot tour, 1978

A muse in Xanadu

It was always going to be difficult to follow up such a huge success, and Olivia's next movie, Xanadu (1980) , received a panning from the critics and did not draw the public into the cinema. However, the Xanadu soundtrack was a roaring success, with Olivia's song Magic topping the US charts, and the title song, a duet with ELO, also selling well. The movie has since become something of a cult classic, with a small but dedicated following.

The movie did have a personal spin-off for Olivia - she met her future husband, Matt Lattanzi, who was a dancer on the set of Xanadu.

With the aerobic feel of the title track and accompanying video, Olivia's early 80's trademark was the short cropped hair and headband. With the album there was also a full-length video, which was unusual at the time when videos were normally just for individual songs. The album was so successful that when Olivia toured with Physical the next year she played all over America to sell-out audiences.

The 'Physical' look

Two of A Kind

After reaching the pinnacle of her career with Physical, Olivia wanted to take things easier. She was starting to think about other directions - one of them was starting a store with Australian novelties, which was later to turn into the "Koala Blue" fashion chain.

In an attempt to reproduce the box-office magic of 'Grease', Olivia was cast with John Travolta in the movie Two of a Kind . In interviews at the time Olivia said that this was her first opportunity to star in a non-musical movie, but the result was not a cinematic success. Once again, however, the soundtrack of Two of a Kind sold quite well with some strong tracks from Olivia and a pleasant duet with John Travolta.

Olivia married her young live-in boyfriend Matt Lattanzi, around Christmas 1984, after they had lived together for four years. The couple enjoyed a fairytale honeymoon in Paris.

Her next change in musical direction was the sultry risqué approach of " Soulkiss " it was not really a musical success. Bizarrely, the videogram was shot when Olivia was pregnant with daughter Chloe - trying not to show this constrained the artistic freedom of the director somewhat.The album , which featured Olivia in tight riding pants and boots holding a crop on the back cover, stretched things further than the public found credible.

Homelife and motherhood

Olivia and Matt

Chloe was born early 1986, and this marked a hiatus in Olivia's music. The period 1986 to 1992 was a lean period in her entertainment career, as she dedicated herself to motherhood, and to developing her business venture, the Koala Blue chain of stores.

Olivia transformed her original idea for a Australian speciality store into a fashion chain. This enterprise was established with fellow-Australian and wife of Olivia's long-time record producer, Pat Farrar, with whom Olivia had started out singing in Britain in the late Sixties and early Seventies. Koala Blue was to be a more family-friendly alternative to an intensive singing career, but it did not last the late '80s/early '90s recession. Olivia chose to expand the franchise chain just as consumers were reining in their expenditure on non-essentials, and the company filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy amid some recriminations.

Music was not totally neglected - in 1988, Olivia brought out " The Rumour ", with the title track penned by Elton John. 1988 was also the year of the Australian Bicentennial, and Olivia made a videogram titled "Down Under" for the Rumour, in which she performed the songs in some stunning Australian settings. The Australian version of the album features the song "It's Always Australia For Me" which is absent from international versions.

Warm And Tender , released in 1989, was not really aimed for the mainstream pop market. An album of children's songs and lullabies, this was really meant for Chloe. It is Olivia's first real musical indulgence, which was released on the Geffen label after MCA refused to run it.

At the 1998 Grease 20th anniversary premiere

Disaster strikes Olivia's comeback plan

Geffen released " Back To Basics, The Essential Collection " in 1992. This was to be Olivia's return to what she did best, a retrospective over her career but featuring four new songs, which Olivia promoted actively, and she was rehearsing to go on tour with the album in the late summer.

The bombshell came on July 2 - Olivia Newton-John had breast cancer. She was taken to hospital and operated on, and then had to undergo a period of chemotherapy. In February the next year she got the all-clear, and went to Australia to recuperate.

Gaia, One Woman's Journey , an intensely personal and upbeat album, was one of the fruits of Olivia's time in Australia out of the limelight. The album was not released in the United States but was widely issued on independent labels elsewhere. Olivia chose to talk about her experiences with breast cancer, so that other women in a similar position could see that survival was possible, and early detection was important.

After her recovery, there were reports of difficulty in Olivia's marriage, which came to a head in 1995 with the announcement that Olivia and husband Matt Lattanzi, were to go their separate ways and eventually divorce. For the next two years Olivia's career was a medley of different directions, with her participating in beauty ads for Home Shopping, a bit part in a US sitcom, an Australian wildlife show titled " Human Nature ", appearing in an Aussie TV series " The Man From Snowy River " and acting in the movie "It's My Party" directed by Grease director Randal Kleiser.

Marae publicity photo

After two years of wandering in the wilderness professionally, Olivia began to feel her way musically once again, with some fine singing for the US Christmas movie "Snowden on Ice", and some private performances at events for CHEC, a charity dear to Olivia's heart. In July 1997 MCA-Nashville signed Olivia for a pop country album, and she recorded a duet with the Raybon Bros "Falling" on their eponymous album.

" Back With a Heart " released in May 1998, found Olivia in fine form with an excellent mix of pop and country.

Return to live touring

Teaming up with Cliff Richard in her first live performance for many years, Australian audiences were treated to Cliff and Olivia live in February and March 1998. The end of 1998 saw Olivia with two Australians for the Main Event Tour , a sellout show with extra dates added by popular demand.

It was America's turn in 1999 - starting on New Year's Eve 98/99 with a mini-tour Olivia treated audiences to a set of her greatest hits, followed by a much larger tour of the United States in the summer.

Meanwhile, a new look and a new direction called, with an acting role in Del Shores independent production of the stage play Sordid Lives

live in Las Vegas 99

live in Las Vegas 2000

The Fall of 2000 saw Olivia singing to her largest audience yet - performing a duet with Australian superstar John Farnham at the Opening Ceremonies of the Sydney Olympic Games . She also performed live at Australian's Carols By Candlelight on Christmas Eve

2001 brought another tour of the United States in celebration of 30 years of music. Also filmed in Queensland, Australia was her next TV movie Wilde Girls . This also starred her daughter Chloe and premiered in November 2001 on Showtime channel. Olivia released "Magic" - a best of compilation and her first Christmas album entitled simply "The Christmas Collection."

Olivia toured the US in 2002 accompanied by a Symphony Orchestra to give a richer sound to her ballads. Olivia also released her first duet album entitled "2" in Australia. Olivia receives an ARIA Award for her contribution to Australian music.

In 2003 Olivia goes full-out touring the world - including USA, Japan and Australia. This continues in 2004 in February and the Fall.

Live 2002, photo: Gary Kwan

Live 2005, photo: Eddie Orzechowski

Olivia toured the USA throughout 2004 and 2005, and Australia and Japan in 2006.

Her philanthropic endeavors continue with the promotion of Livkit - a breast cancer awareness aid (now no longer available). She also started raising money for a cancer support centre in Melbourne, Australia to be named after her. In 2006 Olivia was awarded the Order of Australia, she'd already received the OBE in 1979.

In 2005 Olivia released Stronger Than Before , a CD of life-affirming songs with proceeds going to breast cancer awareness. She follows this positive music with a healing CD " Grace and Gratitude " and her 2007 Christmas Wish album.

The mid-2000s brought challenges for Olivia - boyfriend Patrick McDermott disappeared while on a fishing trip. However, things were to look up when she took a trip to Peru in 2007 and met John Easterling again. John founded the Amazon Herb Company (merged with TriVita in Jan 2013) which makes products using herbs and botanicals from the Amazon. John knows the Amazon well, he has been travelling to the Amazon for over three decades.

Personal Happiness

Olivia and her husband John Easterling

Olivia married for the second time on June 21, 2008, to entrepreneur "Amazon John" John Easterling, who founded the Amazon Herb Company. Olivia and John are the perfect match and their happiness shines through whenever they are together.

In April 2008 Olivia walked the Great Wall of China, all of 228km, to raise funds for her Olivia Newton-John Cancer Centre's Wellness Centre. She was joined by a wealth of friends and celebrities including Sir Cliff Richard, Joan Rivers, Leeza Gibbons, Didi Conn, Dannii Minogue and Amy Sky. She released the inspirational A Celebration of Song album with proceeds going towards her Cancer & Wellness Centre. The same year Olivia’s 2006 concert in Sydney Opera House was released onto DVD and aired on the PBS network to great acclaim. Olivia co-hosted some episodes of Healing Quest for PBS in keeping with her beliefs in the natural healing power of the body. She also starred in the TV series of Sordid Lives as Bitsy Mae Harling, reprising the role she had first taken in 2000 in the movie of the same name. Unfortunately, the TV series only aired for one season.

Olivia with Jane Lynch in Glee

In 2010 Olivia joined the Glee cast, donning a tracksuit and sweat band to join Glee's hilarious villain Sue Sylvester (Jane Lynch) in a recreation of her hit song, Physical. Her next role was in the Canadian movie Score: A Hockey Musical which was released to Canadian theatres in October, a DVD and CD soundtrack followed. Her wonderful Grace and Gratitude CD was re-issued as Grace and Gratitude Renewed with an extra track and re-recordings, surpassing the original. Olivia released her Livwise book full of healthy recipes and attended book signings in New York and London with proceeds again going to her Cancer and Wellness Centre.

Olivia in A Few Best Men movie

Her next role in A Few Best Men caused somewhat of a stir, not only did it involved Olivia’s character acting outrageously but it was to produce a CD soundtrack which revealed a musical side to Olivia that fans had not seen before. Dance remixes of old pop hits remixed by producers like Chew Fu, Roulette and Archiesuch . The lyrics to the Toni Basil hit Mikey Olivia noted were much risqué than anyone seemed to have noticed before! Olivia also recorded a new song Weightless written by her old time producer John Farrar and his son Max.

Christmas 2012 saw the release of a Christmas album of duets with no other than Olivia’s Grease co-star John Travolta. The CD featured a new track written and produced by John Farrar called I Think You Might Like It. Again this caused a media storm, some would argue all for the wrong reasons, as the video was mocked, but others found the message conveyed in the video heartfelt. However, this controversy only helped to propel the project to a wider audience. As Olivia herself said at the time it doesn’t matter because it was raising funds both for her Cancer Centre and John Travolta’s Jett Travolta Foundation.

Bournemouth, UK tour Photo: Kay Bohlen

The year 2013 brought a UK tour, the first since 1978, delighting fans who travelled from all over Europe to catch up with her. However, later that year Olivia had to postpone her later concert dates to help take care of her beloved elder sister, Rona, who was suffering from brain cancer and died within a six weeks of diagnosis. During this sad time Olivia was involved in a car crash which led eventually to the discovery that her breast cancer had metastasized to her shoulder. This must have come as quite a blow as Olivia believed she had been cancer free for over 20 years. However, Olivia chose to keep this diagnosis secret (until 2018) and was soon re-scheduling her tour dates for the following year and continuing working and raising funds for her Cancer and Wellness Centre.

Live in Vegas

Live in Las Vegas 2016

In 2014 Olivia began her three year Las Vegas residency at the Flamingo entitled Summer Nights This produced the wonderful live double CD Summer Nights. Fans were also delighted that the Hotel Sessions was eventually released, a selection of tracks produced by her sister Rona’s son Brett Goldsmith again showing a different side to Olivia’s vocal ability. After completing her Las Vegas residency Olivia returned to touring Australia with John Farnham in a tour named Two Strong Hearts which was released on CD and DVD , both reaching number one on the Australian charts.

Olivia, Amy and Beth for the Liv On album

The following year Olivia was to release another unique project, a collaboration with Amy Sky and Beth Nielsen Chapman, resulting in a CD called Liv On. The songs draw on the power of music to aid and comfort those experiencing grief and loss, as well as people who are dying. All three women have experienced loss with the death of a close family member or illness. Olivia, Amy and Beth visited UK, Ireland, Canada and North America performing to intimate venues where audience members would share their stories of loss and grief. The album reached number 1 on the UK country charts. Later that year Olivia was to have another number one, this time in Australia, her Christmas album with John Farnham entitled Friends for Christmas.

Cancer returns but Olivia continues her positive approach to Liv On

In 2017 Olivia had to cancel tour dates due to severe back pain and this was discovered, in May 2017, to be her breast cancer metastasized to her sacrum. Olivia also undertook a short course of photon radiation therapy. The outpouring of love and concern from the public was overwhelming and touched Olivia deeply. Olivia initially recovered well and went back to work later that year. She undertook a cameo in The Very Excellent Mr. Dundee movie and re-commenced her tour. However, she was still struggling again with back pain and after her annual 2018 wellness walk and research run she was taken to her hospital in Melbourne and spent her 70th birthday there. She was treated incognito and had to learn to walk again having fractured her pelvis.

The first half of 2019 was a process of recovery, Olivia managing to come off morphine, given to manage her pain, and used medicinal cannabis, cultivated by her husband John Easterling, a plant medicine expert. Olivia did really well at managing her cancer diagnosis, under the expertise of husband John, with herbs, immune building supplements and medicinal cannabis.

Olivia Newton-John with John Farrar

Despite her health setback Olivia celebrated the 40th anniversary of Grease in 2018 with John Travolta with some Grease singalongs. Her longtime producer and writer of many of her hits, John Farrar, has received many awards over the years including a 1974 Grammy. In January 2018 Olivia was delighted to add to these awards at the G’Day USA Gala where she and John Travolta presented him with an Outstanding Achievement in the Arts.

An Australian TV movie about her life had been in the pipeline for a few years. Olivia gave reluctant approval for this to be made, they were going to make it anyway so Olivia decided she’d co-operate if her proceeds went to her Cancer and Wellness Centre. It helped that it starred her good friend Delta Goodrem and she recorded two of her hits as duets with Delta, one of which is the lovely Love Is A Gift. The TV movie was later released on DVD but Olivia has yet to watch it, no doubt her innate modesty and privacy make this difficult.

Olivia's long-awaited autobiography

Olivia's autobiography

However, the TV movie was an inspiration to publish her long awaited autobiography called Don’t Stop Believin', named after one of Olivia’s hits. This was highly praised by fans and the media alike and became a New York Best Seller.

Olivia receives her Honorary Doctorate

The last couple of years have bestowed on Olivia numerous awards , in 2018 she received the Honorary Doctorate of Letters from La Trobe University in Melbourne. In 2019 she received the Companion (AC) of the Order of Australia (General Division), this is the highest Australian honor. In 2021 she received Japan's highest honor The Order of the Rising Sun. At the end of 2019 she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty the Queen, becoming Dame Olivia Newton-John. These awards are in recognition of her contribution to music, cancer research and charity.

Olivia's receiving the Companion of the Order of Australia, 2019

2020 into 2021 may be a period where the world is locked down but Olivia continues to make music and speak about the benefits of plant medicines. In 2020 Olivia and her husband John set up the Olivia Newton-John Foundation which is: committed to realizing a world beyond cancer. Funding research into plant-based medicine and other holistic and wellness therapies, we are determined to discover kinder ways to prevent, treat and cure all cancers. This is in addition to her continued efforts to raise funds for her Cancer Wellness Centre in Melbourne.

Olivia’s January 2021 release of Window In The Wall single with daughter Chloe continues the women’s work promoting understanding and love. 2021 began a partnership with Primary Wave Music Publishing to bring her music to a wider audience. The well-renowned producer, remixer and songwriter Vinny Vero is currently working on remastering and digitalizing her work for future releases. The first release of this was for the Physical album's 40th anniversary - an extended Deluxe album along with a DVD was re-released in October 2021. 2023 is said to bring a duet album.

Olivia's health began to fail towards the end of 2021, although she kept in touch with her fans via video messages, photos and voice messages. She spoke and met with her personal friends and family to the end. She survived much longer than many had predicted thanks in part to the use of medicinal cannabis which helped immensely with her pain.

Olivia Newton-John passed away peacefully at her California ranch on the 8th August 2022, at the age of 73. She was a inspiration and a light on many people’s lives. Olivia leaves us a huge legacy of music, film and an example of a life lived in the most positive of ways. Her Cancer Wellness Research Centre in Melbourne is the proudest of all her public achievements.

This lovely tribute is from Olivia's husband John Easterling

Olivia, Our love for each other transcends our understanding. Every day we expressed our gratitude for this love that could be so deep, so real, so natural. We never had to ‘work’ on it. We were in awe of this great mystery and accepted the experience of our love as past, present and forever. At Olivia’s deepest essence she was a healer using her mediums of song, of words, of touch. She was the most courageous woman I’ve ever known. Her bandwidth for genuinely caring for people, for nature and all creatures almost eclipses what is humanely possible. It is only the grace of God that has allowed me to share the depth and passion of her being for so long. In her most difficult times she always had the spirit, the humor, and the will power to move things into the light. Even now as her soul soars, the pain and holes in my heart are healed with the joy of her love and the light that shines forward. Our family deeply appreciates the vast ocean of love and support that has come our way.

John Easterling August 10 2022

Olivia Newton-John's music

Olivia made her mark in the 1970s as an interpretative singer, singing with her unique blend of a clear and light voice combined with a delicate sensitivity and tenderness. This was how she captured American hearts in the mid-seventies, with songs like I Honestly Love You and Have You Never Been Mellow.

However, Olivia has never been happy to stay still, and has continuously broadened her music, showing herself to be a versatile singer as she covered rock songs as well as the gentle folk songs and ballads which formed her early repertoire. Indeed, her most successful single 'Physical' came in 1981, and was a raunchy upbeat number far removed from the type of songs that established her career in the US. Though most of her early songs were written by others, already on her second album the self-penned song Changes showed her songwriting potential, and she has continued to write some very special songs around topics that have deeply concerned her. On Gaia, all the songs are written by her, and Back With A Heart combines some great pop sounds with some strong new country tracks.

Her post-millennium releases have included a duet album "2", "Indigo" a tribute to female singers that have influenced Olivia and Stronger Than Before. Grace and Gratitude, an album of healing music. In 2016 she joined her friends Amy Sky and Beth Nielsen Chapman, to release Liv On. The songs draw on the power of music to aid and comfort those experiencing grief and loss, as well as people who are dying. All three women have experienced loss with the death of a close family member or illness.

Other Interests

Olivia has always had a feeling for Nature and the living environment. She has had a passion for keeping animals, and is a keen horse rider. At her Malibu home she had quite a menagerie of dogs and horses and other creatures.

This affinity for the environment is also reflected in her work - as early as her 1976 Come On Over album there was a song on 'wild horses running free' and her 1981 Physical album head the wonderfully sensitive 'Dolphin Song'. She became United Nations ambassador for the Environment on the UNEP program, and sang in the 'Spirit of the Forest' collaboration in the early eighties. Her 1994 album, Gaia , has a strong environmental theme.

With the arrival of Chloe, it was not surprising that such a sensitive person as Olivia would also involve herself in projects involving children. Olivia has co-written a children's book called 'A Pig Tale' with an environmental theme. She was very actively involved in the Colette Chuda Environmental Fund (now Healthy Child Healthy World).

After recovering from breast cancer back in 1992, Olivia has continuously supported breast cancer awareness charities. In the 21st century Olivia helped raise funds to build a cancer support and wellness centre in Melbourne, Australia which is named after her. She also promoted the Livkit - a breast cancer awareness aid (no longer available). In 2020 Olivia and her husband John Easterling set up the Olivia Newton-John Foundation which is committed to realizing a world beyond cancer. Funding research into plant-based medicine and other holistic and wellness therapies, we are determined to discover kinder ways to prevent, treat and cure all cancers.

Richard and Helen 1992-2022

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Dame Olivia Newton-John obituary

The singer and actor Olivia Newton-John , who has died aged 73 after suffering from cancer, had a ready riposte for anyone who called her “Miss Goody Two-Shoes from Australia”. Despite her Melbourne accent, she had been born in the UK, in Cambridge, and therefore – as she informed a US television audience in 1980 – she was technically “Miss Goody Two-Shoes from England”.

Either way, the quip was not far off the truth. Through a career that included 100m album sales and a starring role in Grease (1978), one of the most successful musicals in film history, she was the entertainer least likely to court controversy. Though she had passionate views, most notably on the environment and cancer research, she rarely expressed strong opinions on other subjects or engaged with negative criticism.

During the early 1970s in particular, she was one of the few young stars who were more popular with parents than with their children. She was once described by Rolling Stone magazine as “a sweet, innocent, 70s version of Doris Day”. However, in the late 70s, after a decade of soft-pop hits, she orchestrated one of the music industry’s most unexpected makeovers.

Her winsome denim wardrobe was replaced with black leather, and breezy album sleeves (often shot in meadows, playing up her girl-next-door freshness) with dark-toned, come-hither shots. The reinvention was mightily helped along by her performance as Sandy, the good-girl-gone-baddish in Grease , and the pot was stirred further by the 1981 hit Physical (“I want to get physical ... Let me hear your body talk,” it implored). Meanwhile, her wanton screen chemistry with her Grease co-star John Travolta was exploited to produce two No 1 singles, Summer Nights and You’re the One That I Want .

Her career duly rocketed, with Physical spending 10 weeks at the top of the US chart, but Newton-John never seemed entirely comfortable as a vamp. Continuing to foster the notion that she was pop’s safe pair of hands, she commented: “People don’t want to hear that you’re nice, but that’s what I am. In fact, I’m pretty boring.”

The 1970s adolescents who were intoxicated by her as Sandy disagreed. For millions of teenage girls she was a formative influence, and boring she was not. More likely, she was just eager to please. A telling example involved her appearance in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest , in which she represented Britain. It was not until years later that she felt able to admit that she had hated not just the deplorably bouncy song – Long Live Love , which came fourth, the top spot going to Abba with Waterloo – but the frothy dress she had worn. She had wanted trousers, but when the public were polled about it they voted for the dress, and she was unwilling to disappoint.

That kind of deference made her enormously popular with conservative audiences in the US, where she had her greatest success, but it did not do much for her credibility. For the rest of her life, during which she also campaigned for animal rights and founded the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre in Melbourne , she was defined by her emollience. In Travolta’s opinion: “Olivia is basically sweet and lovely.”

She was the youngest of three children born to Irene (nee Born) and Brinley Newton-John. The family moved from Britain to Australia in 1954 when Brinley, a teacher, accepted a post at the University of Melbourne . Bound by the Official Secrets Act, he kept his children in the dark about his earlier career – it was not until Olivia was an adult that she discovered that during the second world war her father had been an MI5 officer assigned to the Enigma codebreaking unit at Bletchley Park. Her maternal grandfather was the physicist Max Born, a Nobel laureate.

Olivia wanted to be a vet, but doubted her ability to pass the science exams, and turned instead to her other interest, performing. Regular spots under the name Lovely Livvy followed on Australian radio and television, and at 16 she won a TV talent show. The prize was a trip to London, where she arrived in 1964. Two years later, her debut single, Till You Say You’ll be Mine , failed to reach the chart, and her next venture, a singing duo formed with a fellow Australian, Pat Carroll, was also unsuccessful. She was recruited for a Monkees -inspired pop group called Toomorrow , who got as far as releasing a flop 1970 “space musical” film and two singles.

Her fortunes changed in 1971, when she met Cliff Richard , then hosting his own TV variety show, and was invited to become a regular guest singer. Bruce Welch and John Farrar, members of Richard’s backing band the Shadows, were taken by her girlishly beguiling voice and invited her to record demos in their studio. She was essentially a pop singer, but Welch and Farrar felt that her ability to deliver songs with sweet pathos could be used to good effect on country-oriented tracks.

They were right. One of the 1971 demos was a cover of Bob Dylan’s If Not for You , suitably zazzed up with slide guitar, and it became her first hit. Several more singles and two albums followed in the next two years; one track, an inordinately uptempo version of the murder ballad Banks of the Ohio , did well in the UK and Australia.

Her real breakthrough came in 1973 with the song Let Me Be There . Aimed directly at country playlists, Newton-John’s vocal twang belied her Australian roots. It secured her that year’s Grammy award for best female country vocal performance, and the string of hits that followed, including her signature song, I Honestly Love You , won her the female vocalist of the year trophy at the 1974 Country Music Association awards.

Newton-John’s wholesomeness, abetted by undeniably good tunes, made her a natural on country radio, but some of Nashville’s biggest names were incensed at the notion of an Australian invading their territory, and formed an association dedicated to keeping pop singers out of their genre. It did not stop Newton-John from winning several other major country trophies.

Remarkably, she later claimed to have been unaware of the backlash. “I was travelling and touring, and I heard about it after, and heard that Dolly [Parton] and Loretta [Lynn] had backed me up, so I had great support.”

It was more difficult to win over the then-powerful (and overwhelmingly male) rock music press, which detested her apparent lack of “authenticity”. It dished out particularly peevish coverage for years, carping at what the NME called “her limited stage choreography, her terrible linking, her overscrubbed artificial look of perfection and polish”. Others focused on her looks. “What female singer would ya like most to sit in yr lap?” asked the US rock magazine Creem . “Connie Francis? (too old) Cher? (too bananas). Answer: Olivia!”

Privately, she resented the criticism, but never responded. There was no need. The hits were still coming – some, such as If You Love Me (Let Me Know) , are staples on nostalgia stations to this day. There were more awards, including another three Grammys, and in 1979 being made an OBE. But sales were tailing off by the time she was cast in Grease as the virginal Sandy Olsson, whose purity satirised the 1970s’ nostalgia for the 1950s.

She was initially hesitant to accept, because she was 29 and would be playing a 17-year-old: “I was very conscious of my limitations.” Even so, she negotiated equal billing with Travolta and a percentage of the proceeds in return for a bargain-basement $125,000 fee.

Grease’s enormous success, and the warm reviews for her own performance, reinvigorated Newton-John’s career. It paved the way for another departure – her role as a reincarnated Greek muse in the 1980 film Xanadu. She received middling reviews but every other aspect of the film was panned, except for its disco-oriented soundtrack. From it came two major (and excellent) Newton-John singles, the title track and Magic . The song and album Physical followed later that year. The LP sold 10m copies, while the video for the single, which had Newton-John in then-novel aerobics gear, picked up a Grammy.

Physical proved to be her commercial high-water mark, with none of her subsequent projects coming close to its success. Box-office gold was not rekindled when Newton-John and Travolta teamed up again for a poorly reviewed romcom, Two of a Kind (1983), and a chain of Australian-themed clothes shops that she founded the same year went bankrupt in 1992. That year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

After successful treatment, she released several albums with a healing theme. In 2017 Newton-John discovered the cancer had returned. Part of her treatment took place at the Melbourne cancer research centre she had helped to fund in 2008, and the Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund supports research into plant-based treatments for cancer. Her autobiography, Don’t Stop Believin’, was published in 2018, and two years later she was appointed a dame.

Newton-John’s first marriage, in 1984, to the actor Matt Lattanzi, ended in divorce in 1995. Her partner from 1996 onwards, the cameraman Patrick McDermott, was lost at sea and presumed drowned in 2005. Newton-John’s second husband, John Easterling, whom she married in 2008, and her daughter, Chloe, from her first marriage, survive her.

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Olivia Newton-John dies at age 73

She was a symbol for hope by "sharing her journey with breast cancer."

Olivia Newton-John , who gained worldwide acclaim for her starring role in "Grease," died Monday morning at age 73, according to her family.

"Dame Olivia Newton-John (73) passed away peacefully at her Ranch in Southern California this morning, surrounded by family and friends," her family wrote in a statement shared on social media. "We ask that everyone please respect the family's privacy during this very difficult time."

"Olivia has been a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years sharing her journey with breast cancer," the statement continued.

MORE: Olivia Newton-John talks new foundation and shares advice to women fighting breast cancer

Originally diagnosed with breast cancer in the '90s, Newton-John was in remission for more than 20 years before it returned in 2013. She revealed in 2018 that the disease returned and metastasized to her spine.

MORE: John Travolta reacts to 'Grease' co-star Olivia Newton-John's death

A singer, songwriter, actress and activist, Newton-John, the granddaughter of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born was born in 1948 in Cambridge, England. When she was 5, her family relocated to Melbourne, Australia, and by her teens, she'd landed her big break, winning a talent contest on the TV show "Sing, Sing, Sing."

By 1966, Newton-John had signed a deal with Decca Records, but her major breakthrough wouldn't come until 1973, with the country-flavored hit "Let Me Be There." That same year, the Academy of Country Music named her its most promising female vocalist, and in 1974, the Country Music Association agreed, crowning her its female vocalist of the year.

The next year, the singer's career would gravitate more toward pop, as she released one of her signature songs. "I Honestly Love You," which won Grammys for record of the year and best female pop vocal performance in 1974.

Generations of fans -- particularly young girls -- would come to identify with Newton-John as she took on her most iconic film role in 1978, playing Sandy alongside John Travolta's Danny Zuko in the big-screen adaptation of the musical "Grease." The two would become one of cinema's most beloved couples, performing the duets "You're the One That I Want" and "Summer Nights" together. Newton-John added to her solo staples with "Hopelessly Devoted to You."

"My dearest Olivia, you made all of our lives so much better," Travolta wrote on Instagram following Newton-John's death. "Your impact was incredible. I love you so much. We will see you down the road and we will all be together again. Yours from the first moment I saw you and forever!"

In 1980, Newton-John teamed with the legendary Gene Kelly for the roller-skating fantasy "Xanadu." The movie became a cult classic, and also gave the actress another chart-topping hit from its double-platinum soundtrack.

MORE: Olivia Newton-John reveals she has cancer for third time

Newton-John and Travolta rekindled their onscreen romance for "Two of a Kind" in 1983, and while the film wasn't successful, once again, the actress' music was. The soundtrack went platinum and "Twist of Fate" was a top-five hit.

On the small screen, Newton-John would become a music-video pioneer, turning her super-sexy single "Physical" into a campy romp through saunas, aerobics and workout rooms, alternating ultra-fit male models with an out-of-shape every-man who could lose a few pounds. The clip propelled the song to 10 weeks at the top of the chart, and "Physical" won the 1982 Grammy for video of the year.

Newton-John charted many No. 1 hits throughout her career and sold more than 100 million albums, continuing to work right up until the recurrence of her cancer forced her postpone her 2017 tour. Earlier, she staged a well-received Las Vegas residency at the Flamingo for two years, starting in the spring of 2014.

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In her own eyes, Newton-John saw her family and her humanitarian work as her greatest accomplishments. She and her former husband, actor Matt Lattanzi, welcomed their daughter Chloe in 1986, and Newton-John later helped establish the "Healthy Child, Healthy World" organization after the daughter of Newton-John's friend died of a rare form of cancer.

During her battle with breast cancer, Newton-John worked to raise awareness for the disease and established the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Center in her hometown of Melbourne in 2012.

In 2020, she launched the Olivia Newton-John Foundation to fund research for treatments and therapies to cure cancer.

​​"There are lots of ideas on how we can help people with cancer and treat cancer, but there's been no real science behind the studies," she told "GMA" at the time. "So the idea is to raise money to fund the research on the other kinds of things that are kinder, including a lot of plant medicine."

Newton-John is survived by her husband John Easterling, daughter Chloe Lattanzi, sister Sarah Newton-John, brother Toby Newton-John and her nieces and nephews.

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Olivia Newton-John

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Olivia Newton-John, AO, OBE was an English-born, Australian-raised singer, actress and philanthropist. Olivia's successes include four Grammys, numerous Country Music, American Music, Billboard and People's Choice Awards, an Emmy Award, ten #1 hits and more than fifteen top 10 singles. She also scored another #1 hit, this time on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart, with 'You Have to Believe', a duet with her daughter Chloe Lattanzi - becoming the first mother/daughter duo to top this Billboard chart. In 1978, her co-starring role with John Travolta in Grease catapulted Olivia into super-stardom and to date it remains the most successful movie musical of all time. In 2018 the film celebrates its 40th anniversary. Olivia has been a long-time activist for environmental and animal rights issues. Her personal journeys with cancer led her to announce her partnership with Austin Health and the creation of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre (ONJCWC) on the Austin Campus in her hometown of Melbourne. She serves on the national advisory board for the Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Florida. In that role Olivia helps to raise awareness of the center and provide counsel as a Moffitt Ambassador. Namesake, H. Lee Moffitt is a close friend and adviser who helped Olivia set up her cancer and wellness center in Australia. Olivia co-owns the award-winning Gaia Retreat & Spa near Byron Bay in New South Wales.

Olivia Newton-John Photos

From:  Photo Flashback: Remembering GREASE And MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET Star Derek Keeling

From:  Photo Flash: Olivia Newton-John Arrives in Las Vegas to Kick Off SUMMER NIGHTS Residency

From:  Photo Flash: Olivia Newton-John Attends ABSINTHE at Caesars Palace

From:  Photo Flash: Olivia Newton-John Visits MANIPULATION

From:  Photo Coverage: Toronto International Film Fest. 'Score' Arrivals

From:  Photo Coverage: Olivia Newton-John Visits 'Grease' to Promote Breast Cancer Awareness

Olivia Newton-John Videos

Olivia Newton-John News

Rubicon Theatre Company has announced the launch of its new special event series, “VENTURA LIVE! Music, Laughter and Magic,” featuring one-night and short-run concerts, jam sessions, new play readings, magic nights, comedy, and much more.

Get a first look at photos of the UK and Ireland tour of Grease! See if the show is coming to a venue near you and learn how to purchase tickets.

Based on the 1980 film starring Olivia Newton-John and, before that, the Rita Hayworth film, Down To Earth, this lively adaptation never takes itself too seriously. From start to finish the ensemble prances, preens, and mugs it up, giving audiences a sugary sweet over the top show filled with kinetic dancing, wonderful singing and plenty of toe tapping melodies.

A talented collection of Broadway vets led by Tony winner Betty Buckley gathered together for a one-night-only concert 'A BROADWAY BIRTHDAY: SONDHEIM, LLOYD WEBBER, AND FRIENDS' at Segerstrom Concert Hall on March 28, 2024 to celebrate the legacy—and coincidental same birthdate—of musical theater royalty Andrew Lloyd Webber and Stephen Sondheim.

Hear the new single 'Learn About Love' by Jacquie Roar, a dynamic finalist from THE VOICE Season 24.

Multi-award-winning bluegrass artist and Grand Ole Opry member Rhonda Vincent’s new single “Please Mr. Please” from her upcoming album is available today. The follow-up from Vincent’s number one song, “City Of New Orleans,” “Please Mr. Please” continues to set the pace for a specialty project over a year in the making.

GREASE, THE MUSICAL is given a new treatment, satisfying audiences looking for a toe tapping night of nostalgia while honoring the early stage productions and liberally referencing the famous 1978 movie adaptation.

Join international composer, guitarist, and vocalist VLADIMIR CETKAR and his JAZZ SOUL FUNK ENSEMBLE at CHELSEA TABLE + STAGE. Learn how to purchase tickets.

Multi-award-winning Australian singer, songwriter, producer, actress, and author Delta Goodrem has released a synth-infused remix of her latest single “Hearts On The Run.”

Internationally renowned vocal and cello duo Branden & James from America's Got Talent team up with American Idol and Postmodern Jukebox star Effie Passero in their new show, Three's Company, at Oscar's Palm Springs on Thursday, March 28, at 7pm, and Friday, March 29, at 8:30pm, at Catalina Jazz Club in Hollywood.

Discover the new shows at Spire Center for Performing Arts in Plymouth, featuring Mini Yellow Witches and Branden & James' 'SUMMER NIGHT ON BROADWAY'.

The cult classic play SORDID LIVES will open at Hendersonville Theatre this week. Learn how to purchase tickets.

CHELSEA TABLE + STAGE will present vocalist Jaye Maynard in a special show “Bird Amongst the Blossom: A Tribute to the Blossom Dearie Songbook. Learn more about the show and see how to purchase tickets.

Direct from the West End, Cameron Mackintosh and Disney Theatrical Group have announced that MARY POPPINS will embark on a 2024/2025 UK and Ireland tour.

CHELSEA TABLE + STAGE will celebrate one of Motown’s most successful hitmakers in “For Once in My Life: The Songs of Ron Miller” on Monday, March 25 at 7:00 PM.

Always Olivia, a tribute to one of the most celebrated and beloved pop culture icons of all time, the late Olivia Newton-John comes to Raue Center on Saturday, May 11 at 7 pm.

CHELSEA TABLE + STAGE will present the return of acclaimed film composer and pop hit-maker Randy Edelman on Saturday, March 16 at 9:30 PM.

Released by Green Hill Productions, 'Rendezvous: Life at Fontainebleau” is a melodious journey crafted with the elegance and charm characteristic of Anka's storied career. The song narrates the tale of Fontainebleau Las Vegas as a beloved friend whose grandeur and beauty redefines the Las Vegas skyline.

Music and magic — with a dash of celebrity — are on tap at Bucks County Playhouse this March, as the New Hope theatre continues its Winter-Spring Visiting Artists Series. Learn about programming and see how to purchase tickets!

CHELSEA TABLE + STAGE will present the return of Mark MacKillop, star of West Side Story, Anastasia and Dirty Dancing, with the fourth installment of his “Duets” series. Learn how to purchase tickets.

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Olivia Newton-John's daughter believes her mom's spirit visited her as a 'little blue orb'

Olivia Newton-John 's daughter has felt her mother's presence in the year since she passed from breast cancer at the age of 73.

Chloe Lattanzi, daughter of the pop icon, spoke to PEOPLE on the first anniversary of her mother's death, sharing that she believes she's had supernatural visits from the Grease star. "Two weeks after she passed my phone accidentally took a picture of my dog, and there floating by his head was a little blue orb, the same color as this," Lattanzi said, referring to an aquamarine pendant necklace that her stepfather John Easterling had gifted Newton-John, which has since been passed down to her.

"Mom and I had talked years back," Lattanzi explained. "We'd watch these paranormal shows and I'd say, 'You gotta show up for me.' And she was like, 'I'll show up as one of those orb things.'"

Easterling had a similar experience with the orb. When he visited Peru two months ago to scatter Newton-John's ashes at the spot where they married, he took a picture and "this blue orb is right between my eyes." He added, "It's been a supernatural year."

Newton-John passed away peacefully at her home in Santa Ynez, Calif. last August following a 30-year battle with breast cancer. She was first diagnosed in 1992 and publicly shared that it metastasized to the sacrum in 2017. Newton-John championed cancer research and launched the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre  and  Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund prior to her death. Lattanzi has helped ensure that her mother's legacy lives on as she gears up for the annual  Olivia's Walk for Wellness  in Melbourne in October.

"It's an honor. I know it's going to be really hard emotionally, but I'm excited to do this for her," Lattanzi said of continuing her mother's work.

She also recalled their final moment together: "[Her caregiver] Carol says she opened her eyes, looked at me, and mouthed, 'I love you.' That's a very special last memory for me."

Related content:

• John Travolta pays tearful tribute to  Grease  costar Olivia Newton-John at the Oscars: 'Hopelessly devoted'
• John Travolta honors Olivia Newton-John, recreates iconic  Grease  routine in Super Bowl ad
• Watch Coldplay and Natalie Imbruglia honor Olivia Newton-John with 'Summer Nights' tribute in London

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