Sweet Harmonies of Tomorrow - Australian Women's Weekly

A pretty girl sings with three boys

Tomorrow is a very important word in the vocabulary of pretty Melbourne pop singer Olivia Newton-John. It is the name of a brand-new pop group, which Olivia - as the only girl with three boys hopes to lead to world stardom. And tomorrow any tomorrow in the next few months will also bring her wedding to rhythm guitarist Bruce Welch.

OLIVIA, the sweet-faced, fair haired girl from Melbourne (blonde is almost too hard a word for her brand of golden freshness), absolutely glows with happiness these days.

As yet, she has set no date for her wedding to her manager, Bruce Welch, formerly guitarist with the Shadows.

When the couple became engaged on Olivia's 20th birthday, last September, they said they would not marry for a year.

We're in no hurry, Olivia said in London. But we could get married any time. Perhaps even tomorrow.

When we do get married it won't be in a register office. We'll either married on the Continent, in America, or in the garden of Bruce's house at Hadley Wood, just outside London.

The ambitious plans for the Tomorrow group were announced by film producer Harry Saltzman in America in February.

Saltzman is the man who made the James Bond films - creating one of the world's superstars in Sean Connery in the process. So Olivia and the boys of Tomorrow would seem to have all signals set go for them.

Apart from James Bond, another of Harry Saltzman's triumphs was the Harry Palmer spy-film series, which launched Michael Caine.

Midas of music

Saltzman's partner in the Tomorrow project is Don Kirschner, who discovered Olivia Newton-John.

Kirschner is a Midas of today's music the man who invented the Monkees and became a millionaire before he was 30.

The Tomorrow boys are all instrumentalists who also sing. They are: Vic Cooper, pianist and organist, who has played with several British groups; Karl Chambers, 22-year-old Negro rhythm and blues drummer from Philadelphia, and Ben Thomas, guitarist with a Country and Western background.

That's a pretty mixed assembly-one grounded in the British sound, one from rhythm and blues, one Country and Western - and, as singer, Olivia, who has basically a pop background, with experience in television and concerts in Australia and England.

They are the best-looking group that ever existed, says Don Kirschner. We looked for people who were decent, who wanted the opportunity, and would work at being stars. Sincere, honest, nice people.

And people with a solid performing background, he might have added.

Kirschner's Monkees, although they were enormously successful money-makers, were never completely accepted by the more knowledgeable music fans.

It was always felt they were too computerised selected for values that were not necessarily musical, and machine-tooled for studio recording and that they shrank from exposure on a concert stage.

The first film to be made by the Tomorrow group is expected to be ready for showing by November. The group's first album will be released some months before the film appears, on the Calendar label of RCA Victor.

Their songs, says Kischner, will be written by the group themselves, and every great songwriter in the world.

Since returning to London from America in February Olivia has spent every spare moment helping her fiance to paint his house - their future home - at Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire.

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The rest of her time has been spent with the Tomorrow boys, Benny. Karl, and Vic.

The boys and I have been rehearsing in the studios, writing songs, having photo sessions, and having clothes fitted for the film, she said.

The group were supposed to start their screen career this month, in the first of a series of musical adventure films to be made at Pinewood Studios near London.

But the start of shooting has been put back, probably until the end of May, because a director hasn't been decided on, said Olivia.

The boys and I flew to Rome for a day recently to talk with an Italian director. But I can't mention his name, because I don't know whether he will direct the film.

Following completion of the first film, the Tomorrow team is scheduled to make a television special for America's National Broadcasting Company. It will be filmed in Europe.

Olivia's fiance is delighted that she has a busy travelling timetable ahead.

He is my manager, so he has an excuse to be with me all the time, said Olivia. Bruce, 26, is now a partner with his own former manager, Australian Peter Gormley, in a management-agency business.

The burning question now question now is: can a nice girl Melbourne leave high school and find success making films with a pop group in London?

It helps if she looks like Olivia Newton-John.

Olivia of the unshowbusiness-like patronym has the bones of a high fashion model she is a ringer for Jean Shrimpton, though petite at 5ft. 6in.- but she also has the ready, warm smile of the girl down the street.

She wears her hair straight and shoulder-length, and she has none of the freaky look of many beat singers.

She's not even a bit rebellious. Her father, Vice-Chancellor of Newcastle University, might give you an argument on that Olivia admits he would have liked her to matriculate and go on to university (like her brother the doctor).

I did my leaving at University High School in Melbourne, but left before matric, Olivia explained.

She had the chance to work on a Christmas TV show in Melbourne and couldn't bear to pass it up. I was happier singing than studying.

Perhaps because she didn't go to university, she didn't acquire an urge to blow it up, or strike any blows against the establishment.

Born in England

I want to do something I can be proud of, she said. My sister wants to win an Oscar for acting I just want to make good films.

Olivia has been picking out tunes ever since her father brought the family to the master's lodge at Ormond College, University of Melbourne, when she was five years old.

She was born in England 20 years ago, where her father was teaching German at Cambridge University.

Her mother was the daughter of Max Born, Nobel Prize winning atomic physicist. The Borns had fled to England from their native Germany to escape Nazi oppression.

So Olivia attended school in Melbourne. Her parents divorced when she was 12, and Olivia continued to live in Melbourne with her mother, while her father took up the vice-chancellorship at Newcastle.

She was singing with her own group in Melbourne the Sol Four when she was 14.

She later won a contest on the Johnny O'Keefe show, and first prize was a trip 10 England. She decided to leave school at 15, and after singing for a year on Channel 7, Melbourne's Sing, Sing, Sing, and other shows, left for England with her mother on the trip she had won.

With another Australian girl, Pat Carroll, Olivia sang in London clubs, on television, and BBC radio. Then, after Pat had returned to Tomorrow Australia, arrived.

Don Kirschner heard Olivia sing, and asked her to audition for Harry Salt-man for a film. She did, and she was invited to join Tomorrow.

Can a nice girl from Melbourne find success making films with a pop group in England? Stay tuned for the next instalment which will come when Tomorrow's first records and film appear.

From Camilla Beach, in London, and Bill Wilson, in New York

Photo captions:
RIGHT: Olivia Newton-John with her fiance, Bruce Welch, ex-guitarist with the Shadows. Bruce is now her business manager.
ABOVE: Delightful picture of Olivia Newton-John was taken in New York, where she went for the announcement of film plans for the Tomorrow singers.
LEFT: Olivia in a more serious mood. This picture was also taken in New York. Tomorrow's films are planned as an adventure series spiced with music.

Color pictures by Bill Wilson