Olivia Newton-John’s special connection to Melbourne
She was Australia’s sweetheart. The girl who grew up in Melbourne and conquered the world. But ‘our Liv’ never forgot the city and country that adored her.
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She was a global icon, but Olivia Newton-John was hopelessly devoted to Melbourne. Actually, make that lovingly, because no matter where Olivia was in the wide world, she always considered Melbourne home.
Four years ago, in a reflective interview with the Herald Sun, her hometown credentials remained strong and true. Newton-John was still “a Melbourne girl at heart,” who savoured the cheers of an MCG footy crowd, or the sounds of animals at Melbourne Zoo.
“We lived at Jolimont next to the MCG,” Olivia said. “I used to hear the roar of the footy crowd coming through every weekend.
“We also lived in Parkville next to the animals, so I’d hear the lions roaring every morning.”
She said with a smile: “I’ve savoured all the fun parts of Melbourne, and kept them with me”.
From Melbourne, Newton-John conquered with pop hits such as Physical and Magic, and movies Grease and Xanadu.
“Melbourne helped shape me for success because I got my first training in show business here,” Newton-John said, citing classic TV variety shows Time For Terry, The Happy Show and The Go!! Show, where she regularly performed as a teenager.
“There are not many places in the world where you can get all that experience,” she said. “It gave me good stead when I went overseas.”
British-born, Newton-John’s family moved here from England when she was 6, when her father Bryn began work as a professor, and also the master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne.
“I am a young girl racing home from school across the grass on the grounds of Ormond College,” she wrote, in a flashback moment, in her autobiography, Don’t Stop Believin’.
“I’m running home to the music of nature. Birds are serenading me – kookaburras, parrots, crows, and those magpies with the large wings and scary beaks that hover and hide in the trees.
“Oh, those magpies! Sometimes I would have to cover my small blonde head with my schoolbooks as those huge, striking black and white birds swooped down on me.
“I can still hear the sound of the brisk wind in their feathers that brushed so close to my ears as I walked under the gum trees that held their nests,” she added, poetically.
Newton-John attended Christ Church Grammar School in South Yarra, and University High School in Parkville.
“We were required to live on the Ormond College grounds so that my father was accessible both day and night. No one minded because it was such a safe and lively atmosphere and, in many ways, I considered it a giant playground,” she said.
“Ormond was a place of old vine-covered buildings and rolling green lawns that gave me plenty of exercise. And I never got lost because there was a steep clock tower in the middle of campus that served as my compass.”
She added: “At night, I could hear the young men who had won their rowing competitions banging their spoons on the solid wooden tables in the huge dining room as they enjoyed their meal.
“Years later, when I visited Ormond to see my father’s oil portrait hanging there, I saw all those spoon dents from years of celebrations,” Newton-John said. “It brought back great memories.”
She was bemused by Victorian school rules, particularly a ban on girls wearing patent leather shoes in case boys were tempted to look into the footwear’s reflection, and up dresses.
“It’s funny to mull over what passed as important morals of the day,” Newton-John said.
Olivia Newton John left Melbourne for the sake of an international recording career, but always kept the city in her heart.
She had family here, specifically her mother Irene, sister Rona, and Rona’s children, including singer and actor Tottie Goldsmith, and her musician and photographer brother Brett.
Olivia would often visit Melbourne, either in tandem with promoting new work, or in secret.
Newton-John had a Koala Blue store in South Yarra, a fashion outlet inspired by homesick times while she lived in LA.
In California, Koala Blue stocked chocolate, biscuits and treats from Olivia’s Aussie childhood.
Her Olivia Newton John Cancer and Wellness Centre made Melbourne a regular destination more than ever before, with the unassuming superstar striding into town again and again for fundraisers, the ONJ Gala and ONJ Walk.
The gala hosted incredible talent including Bee Gees icon Barry Gibb, Delta Goodrem, John Farnham, The Veronicas. One year, Olivia and Farnham played a surprise show in the hospital lobby.
“It was the most memorable audience ever,” she said.
“I make a point of visiting the patients at the ONJ Centre whenever I’m in Australia. I want to see everyone is being cared for.”
Last year, during the pandemic, and locked down at her home near LA, Olivia told the Herald Sun, she pined for her “heart home” – Melbourne.
“I miss the sounds of the birds in the morning,” she said. “Even though I went back to England when I was 16, for my career, those years from 5 to 16, that I spent in Australia, they’re the very formative years – that’s a very important period in your life.”
Tottie Goldsmith said to Olivia, home was family.
“Family was so important to her and she brought everyone together, here in Melbourne,” Tottie told the Herald Sun on Tuesday.
“She would bring her huge smile, her giggle, her playfulness, and, as she went through the these last horrible years, she brought her steel. I will never forget how strong she was.
“But she loved Australia and she loved Melbourne. If it wasn’t for her career, I believe she would have lived here always. She loved coming here, and we loved having her here. It was family, it was home.”
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