Australian singer, actress, and activist Dame Olivia Newton-John (26 September 1948 – 8 August 2022) passed away recently. What better way to honour an icon than to have a deeper understanding of her life and legacy?

Thus, here’s a run down of top things you may know but not everyone knows about the diva.

Photo credit: Blue_Angels_Newton-John_Travolta_cropped.jpg: PH3 CURT FARGOderivative work: Rambo’s Revenge (en.wiki), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

#1 – She has gazillions of musical achievements or something like that.

Alright. A lot of us may have known her laurels.

It is fine. I may be exaggerating a bit. However, come to think of it. Not everyone’s life works could come close to what this lady has accomplished.

Olivia Newton-John was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose musical career featured two number-one albums on the Billboard 200: Have You Never Been Mellow (1974) and If You Love Me, Let Me Know (1974), as well as five number-one singles and ten top-ten singles on the Billboard Hot 100 (1975). The Recording Industry Association of America has awarded gold certification to 14 of her albums and 11 of her singles, including two Platinum singles (RIAA). Newton-John is one of the best-selling musicians from the second half of the 20th century to the present, with global record sales of more than 100 million.

Newton-John appeared in the 1978 musical movie Grease, whose score is now among the best-selling records of all time. It includes two significant hit duets with co-star John Travolta, including “You’re the One That I Want,” one of the all-time best-selling songs, and “Summer Nights.” “I Honestly Love You,” a 1974 Grammy winner for Record of the Year, and “Physical,” the 1980s’ highest-charting single on the Billboard Hot 100, are two of her defining solo albums.

# 2 – She has way more popular songs than we initially may be aware of.

Of course, not all of us would have been born when these songs topped the charts or dominated the airwaves. Nevertheless, that does not mean the pieces did not become popular.

Other well-loved Newton-John songs include “If Not for You” and “Banks of the Ohio” (both from the 1971 movie Grease), “Let Me Be There” (1973), “If You Love Me (Let Me Know)” (1974), “Have You Never Been Mellow” (1975), “Sam” (1977), “Hopelessly Devoted to You” (1978; also from Grease), “A Little More Love” (1978), and “Magic” and “Xanadu” (1980 with Electric Light Orchestra).

#3 – She and her family seemed to have moved around a fair bit.

As a Fil-Aussie migrant myself, it is interesting to note the circumstances that Newton-John and her family had.

Australian Newton-John was born to Brinley “Bryn” Newton-John (1914-1992) and Irene Helene (1914-2003) on September 26, 1948 in Cambridge, England. Her father was born to middle-class parents in Wales. Her mother was born in Germany and had fled the Nazi regime with her family to the UK in 1933. Her maternal grandmother Hedwig was the child of German Jewish lawyer Victor Ehrenberg and his Lutheran wife, whose own father was lawyer Rudolf von Jhering, Olivia’s great-great-grandfather. Max Born, a German Jewish jurist who won the Nobel Prize for physics, was Olivia’s maternal grandpa. Gustav Victor Rudolf Born, a pharmacologist, was her uncle. Newton-John was a third cousin of comedian Ben Elton through her Ehrenberg family.

Newton-John’s father was an MI5 officer who arrested Rudolf Hess during World War II. He took over as headmaster of the Cambridgeshire High School for Boys after the war, and he was in this role when Olivia was born.

Olivia was the third of three children, following her sister Rona, an actress who was married to Olivia’s Grease co-star Jeff Conaway and her brother Hugh. Newton-John’s family moved to Melbourne, Australia in 1954 when she was six years old, where her father was a professor of German and the master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne.

Newton-John first attended University High School in Parkville before attending Christ Church Grammar School in the Melbourne neighbourhood of South Yarra.

#4 – Her rise to fame had early beginnings.

Newton-John already showed much promise even at her younger years.

At the age of 14, Newton-John and three of her classmates created Sol Four, a short-lived all-girl group that frequently performed in a coffee shop run by her brother-in-law. She started appearing often on regional Australian television programmes including Time for Terry and HSV-7’s The Happy Show as Lovely Livvy.

#5 – She was a parent and serious about it.

Newton-John’s self-described “self-indulgent” album, “Warm and Tender,” was released in September 1989. It represented a reunion with producer John Farrar, who had been missing from her prior LP, and a return to a more healthy view of herself. The CD included lullabies and love songs for parents and their children, which were inspired by her daughter, who was depicted on the cover. This album, Farrar’s final one, likewise failed to resurrect Olivia’s music career because it only peaked at No. 124 on the Pop charts. However, it reveals what was important to Newton-John at the time – motherhood and family – which may not be always everything but totally something.

#6 – She fought for breast cancer.

Something stark that I found out lately was Newton-John’s breast cancer advocacy. Apparently, there was a good reason for that.

“Back to Basics: The Essential Collection 1971-1992,” Newton-third John’s hits album, and her first tour since the “Physical” excursion 10 years earlier set the stage for yet another return for the singer in 1992. Newton-John was forced to cancel the album’s promotional activities, including the tour, after she received the news that she had breast cancer soon after the album’s release. On the same weekend that her father passed away, she was diagnosed with the illness.

After making a full recovery, Newton-John started supporting medical research into breast cancer and other conditions. She served as a spokesman for the breast self-examination tool Liv-Kit. The Gaia Retreat and Spa in Byron Bay, New South Wales, was another property that she had a stake in that reinforces her string of wellness-related initiatives until her demise a few days ago.

#7 – She was an environmentalist and animal welfare activist.

Newton-John fought not only for breast cancer research but also for causes related to the environment and animal welfare. In fact, her earlier participation with several humanitarian causes served as a precursor to Newton-John’s activism for health-related concerns.

In 1978, Newton-John postponed a concert tour to Japan in opposition to the killing of dolphins captured in tuna fishing nets. When the Japanese government gave her the assurance that the practise was being stopped, she subsequently rescheduled the visit. The 1981 song “The Promise (the Dolphin Song),” which has been hailed as “one of the most gentle, emotional voices of the singer’s career,” also reflects her concern for these “beautifully evolved creatures,” as she referred to them in the “Warm and Tender” liner notes.

“It was strange. The morning after I was in the pools, I woke up and the words and melody were in my head. I think it was a gift from them (the dolphins).”

Olivia Newton-John

#8 – She is a dame.

Until her passing, Newton-John’s commitment in these causes didn’t cease but rather served as a precedent to others. With all of these successes and contributions, it is fair to conclude that Olivia Newton-John had a successful existence, both inside and beyond the music industry.

For her contributions to “charity, cancer research, and entertainment,” Newton-John received the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in the 1979 New Year Honours and the DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the 2020 New Year Honours.

Note: This article uses material from the Wikipedia article “Olivia_Newton-John,” which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.

Cover Photo Credit: Eva Rinaldi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons