Olivia Newton John - Physical World Tour 1982 (2/7)

Olivia Newton-John was born in Cambridge, England, to a Welsh father, Brinley ("Bryn") Newton-John, and a German-born mother, Irene Born, the eldest child of the Nobel prize-winning atomic physicist Max Born. Her mother's family had left Germany before World War II to avoid the Nazi regime (Newton-John's maternal grandfather was Jewish, and her maternal grandmother was of paternal Jewish ancestry). Her maternal great-grandfather was jurist Victor Ehrenberg and her matrilineal great-grandmother's father was German jurist Rudolf von Jhering. Newton-John is the youngest of three children, following brother Hugh, a doctor, and sister Rona, an actress who was married to Grease co-star Jeff Conaway from 1980 until their divorce in 1985. Newton-John's father was an MI.5 officer on the Enigma project at Bletchley Park who took Rudolf Hess into custody during World War II. In 1954 Newton-John's family emigrated to Melbourne, Australia, where her father worked as a professor of German and as Master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne.

At 14, Newton-John formed a short-lived all-girl band, Sol Four, with three classmates often performing in a coffee shop owned by her brother-in-law. She became a regular on local Australian radio and television shows including HSV-7's The Happy Show where she performed as "Lovely Livvy." She also appeared on the Go Show where she met future duet partner, Pat Carroll, and future music producer John Farrar. (Carroll and Farrar would later marry.) She entered and won a talent contest on the television program Sing, Sing, Sing, hosted by 1960s Australian icon Johnny O'Keefe, performing the songs "Anyone Who Had A Heart" and "Everything's Coming Up Roses." Newton-John was initially reluctant to use the prize she had won, a trip to England, but travelled there nearly a year later after her mother encouraged her to broaden her horizons.

(extract from Wikipedia 2011)