Engaged To Her Shadow - Australian Women's Weekly

Australian singer will marry pop guitarist

By Camilla Beach

ONE enchanted evening earlier this year Australian pop singer Olivia Newton-John caught up with her Shadow. He proposed to her.

Champagne bottle in hand, Bruce Welch, rhythm guitarist of the internationally famous pop group the Shadows, popped the question over dinner at the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne.

And Olivia accepted, as she did again many times before the couple finally became officially engaged on her 20th birthday.

I gave her a final chance to say 'no' last night, said Bruce, as we talked in his modern London flat, which overlooks Lord's Cricket Ground, on the morning of their engagement.

She had 20 minutes to make up her mind before her birthday started at midnight.

Olivia has the Cinderella look-she's pretty, blonde, and petite.

Brewing tea, changing records, and arranging greetings telegrams - among them one from her former singing partner, Pat Carroll, now in Melbourne - Olivia fingered her engagement ring proudly.

We didn't buy it especially as an engagement ring, she said, extending her hand. Bruce gave it to me several months ago.

The ring is a cluster of small diamonds set in white gold and surmounted by a pearl.

But I couldn't have chosen a prettier ring myself, said Olivia, so I wanted to have it for my engagement ring. But today's the first time I've worn it on my engagement finger.

Brown-eyed Olivia first met her 26 year-old, brown-eyed and Beatle-cropped Shadow two years ago at Bournemouth, England. Cliff Richard and the Shadows were topping the bill, with Olivia and Pat Carroll supporting.

I had another boyfriend at the time, said Olivia. But by chance Bruce and I met again a year ago at another show in Coventry.

Their romance stretched right around the world to Australia, where it gathered momentum. Someone remembered that I was already married with a seven-year-old son, said Bruce, and tried to turn it into scandal. 'I had said 'I love her' - referring to Olivia - and that was fair enough to print.

But no one thought to mention that I was in the process of getting a divorce even before I started taking Olivia out.

Custody of the son, Dwayne, was given to his former wife, Ann, when the divorce went through several months ago, and Bruce is now free to remarry.

Unlike the many pop stars who will turn themselves inside out to make headlines, Bruce avoids personal publicity when he can.

Unlike a lot of others in my business, I don't like people to know how much I paid for a house or a car, he said.

If the Press hear about our engagement today, it's not because I rang them up and told them.

Tasteful is a word Bruce uses frequently, and he knows how to apply it to his life. He has bought a Georgian-style house at Hadley Wood, outside London, which he will move into in December.

In the meantime, he was borrowing it from friends for the celebration party.

Quite a lot of Australians are coming tonight, said Olivia, who is the granddaughter of Max Born, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics (jointly) in 1954, and well known for his work on the atom.

Her parents are Mr. B. Newton-John, of Newcastle, N.S.W., and Mrs. Irene Newton-John, London.

John Rowles has been invited. And the Easybeats. And, of course, my sister, Rona. Rona, who is an actress, bears a remarkable resemblance to film star Vanessa Redgrave.

Telephone calls interrupted our conversation. Friends rang almost continually, offering congratulations and asking the way to the party.

We will probably get married in the garden at Hadley Wood, said Olivia, producing photographs of their newly acquired house and garden.

Neither of us is particularly religious, so we probably won't get married in church.

But they will not marry for another year. At least not until after Olivia's 21st, said Bruce.

For Bruce, the day was one of triple celebration: His engagement, Olivia's birthday, and his anniversary of ten years in show business.

The two original Shadows, Bruce and top-rating guitarist Hank B. Marvin, joined Cliff Richard as his backing group in the autumn of 1958.

They have been consistently successful ever since. We were the very first group, said Bruce. I think people want to listen to good straight music, which is why we've been so successful. Cliff's had about 40 hit records and we've had about 30.

We've had a well groomed, polished act for years - and I think that's what people pay to see.

But it's the end of the touring road for Bruce in December, when he hangs up his guitar for the last time.

I'm through with touring. I don't want to be a Shadow when I'm 40 - or even when I'm 30, he said, and Olivia nodded her head in approval.

So I'm going into partnership with Hank, and our manager Peter Gormley - he's an Australian, too. Hank and I will go on writing music, and I'll handle the music-publishing side of the business. And then we will link up in management-agency with Peter Gormley to promote new groups.

A recently added attraction to the management line-up, which includes Cliff Richard, the Shadows (who will continue without Bruce), and John Rowles, is Olivia.

I want to continue singing, said Olivia. But at the moment I'm having to take singing lessons because I had my tonsils out recently.

When I go back on stage I'm going to use my own name (Pat and I called ourselves Jane and Lisa for a while) - and Bruce is going to promote me.

But by this time Bruce was opening the door of his Rolls-Royce to drive Olivia to the hairdresser's. She's got a lot of talent, he said, and the Rolls swept out into the London traffic.

Photo captions:

AUSTRALIAN pop singer Olivia Newton-John, with her fiance, Bruce Welch, of the Shadows, in his London flat overlooking Lord's. The big trouble is I hate cricket, said Bruce.
OLIVIA AND BRUCE with his silver-grey Rolls Royce.
Olivia wears her birthday present from Bruce: A maxi-coat lined with mongolian lamb.