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 attended Christ Church Grammar School, and then University High School, near to Ormond College.Īt fourteen, Newton-John formed a short-lived all-girl group, Sol Four, with three classmates often performing in a coffee shop owned by her brother-in-law. In 1954, when Olivia was six, the Newton-Johns emigrated to Melbourne, Australia, where her father worked as a professor of German and as Master of Ormond College at the University of Melbourne. Newton-John is the youngest of three children, following brother Hugh (1940-2019), a doctor, and sister Rona (1943–2013) (an actress who was married to Grease co-star Jeff Conaway from 1980 until their divorce in 1985). After the war he became Headmaster at Cambridgeshire High School for Boys and was in that role when Olivia was born. Newton-John's father was an MI5 officer on the Enigma project at Bletchley Park who took Rudolf Hess into custody during World War II. Her maternal great-grandfather was jurist Victor Ehrenberg and her matrilineal great-grandmother's father was jurist Rudolf von Jhering. She is a third cousin of comedian Ben Elton. Newton-John's maternal grandmother was of paternal Jewish ancestry as well. Her Jewish maternal grandfather, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born, fled with his family to England from Germany before World War II to escape the Nazi regime. Newton-John was born in Cambridge, England, to Welshman Brinley 'Bryn' Newton-John (1914–1992) and Irene Helene (née Born) (1914–2003).

Olivia dancing with stars