I Just Make Records
Olivia Newton-John one of Australia’s most successful export pop singers, has been accused with John Denver of being cute, sugar plum, coy and too good to be true. But she cna afford, like Liberace, to laugh at the criticism on the way to the bank.
She probably gets something like $100,000 a week at places like Las Vegas and Reno but there are no outward signs of it.
Her big income is very recent and probably her tax problems are most complicated but it is not in her personality to be a big spender.
She also has the reputation of being one of the hardest stars to get to interview.
I already knew of her this reputation when I went to Kingsford-Smith Airport at Mascot in Sydney to meet Olivia on her return to Australia to spend Christmas with her family.
It was because of this - and the fact that it’s a large airport - that I wasn’t surprised at not being bale to find Olivia. I found she had been booked on a Qantas flight and actually arrived two hours before schedule on Pan Am.
But I’m relentless. I traced her to a hotel room in the city where, when we eventually met up, I found her to be the most charming and cooperative celebrity I’ve met. (Which is why I am writing this interview, instead of looking at the “situ vacant” columns in the newspapers).
She seemed honestly bewildered that she was considered hard to interview.
“I really don’t know why,” she said. “Of course my schedule is very tight and I have a press agent to make appointments for me. For instance the week before I left the States I did three photographic sessions for three magazines and at the end of them I was a wreck. I had been asked to do 12, so perhaps you see what I mean. Often I don’t know what requests are made. I just have to leave all that to my agent.”
Olivia Newton-John is - to quote Norman Gunston - a lady who needs no introduction. However, unlike Norman, I intend to introduce her anyway.
She was born in England and came to Australia with her parents when she was five. Her father taught German at Cambridge University and 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.