Ian Turpie, My love for Olivia! - Australian Women's Weekly

By Jim Murphy

Ian Turpie calls Olivia Newton-John the girl with the best face in the world. He also describes her as an enigma. And Ian, host of Seven's game show The New Price Is Right, is better placed than most to know Australia's international pop superstar. He was her first boyfriend.

Their teenage love affair began when she was still at school and blossomed into a TV working relationship as well. Now, they're good friends.

Their romance, which was eagerly followed by Melbourne TV fans when Ian and Olivia were working together on HSV-7 in the early 1960s, lasted until Olivia made her break overseas in 1966.

They almost got together again when Olivia made a brief return from England. However Ian had met Jan, who was to become his wife. Olivia went back to London, met Shadows guitarist Bruce Welch and the rest is history.

For the five years they were together, Ian and Olivia were inseparable. They often sang together, went everywhere together - to the car races, the football, dances, concerts. Olivia even joined in games of footy with Ian and his four football-mad brothers.

When the time came for Olivia to go overseas (the trip was her prize from a TV talent quest), their parting was a wrench.

They struck a promise that neither would go out with anyone else, provided she was away for no more than three months.

But she was away for more than three months, Ian recalled. She'd phone me every month with reports of how she was going, and of her big hopes of landing a recording contract. By the time she came back, things had changed with her and I'd found Jan.

She went back to London with her friend Pat Carroll, they got some TV exposure in the Dick Emery Show as a singing duo, calling themselves Liza and Jane, and that's where her career started to take off.

At first Ian was reluctant to talk about his days with Olivia. That's all way in the past. It began either just before or just after my 19th birthday, he said. A couple of mates, Don McLennan (younger brother of New Faces judge Rod McLennan) and Ross Porter, and I went to a coffee bar in Prahran to hear this girl sing. It was Olivia.

She was 15 and attending University High School. She was singing folk songs then. Her brother-in-law, Brian Goldsmith, was part-owner of the place.

I went back to hear her a few times, and began taking her out. She took me home to meet her mother, but that wasn't a big success. I don't think her mother approved of me personally or of her daughter having boyfriends generally.

Olivia enjoyed singing. She had a group, called The Sol Four, with three school friends for a time. They used to sing at jazz clubs and school parties.

Her school frowned on the girls having steady boy-friends and I was never allowed to pick Olivia up from school. Once I gave her a friendship ring, which was confiscated by the school. I marched up to the school and got it back.

Olivia and I saw each other regularly in those early days when she was still at school, despite the opposition. She'd spend weekends at our place at Doncaster, kicking the football around with me and my brothers.

We used to sing together at the jazz clubs and started doing regular spots at a school for crippled children.

It was through these informal duets that Olivia got her big break. I used to be a regular on the occasional Melbourne editions of Johnny O'Keefe's TV show Sing, Sing, Sing. I took Olivia to one of the cast parties, and we sang a couple of songs together.

The producer and director heard us. They were searching for singers for a quest which was a segment of the programme. They asked me if I thought Olivia would be any good at singing solo. I said yes, they persuaded her to enter the quest, and she won first prize of a trip to England.

She didn't take her trip for another two years, during which time she and I worked together on HSV-7's daytime and evening editions of Time For Terry.

In those days she had a small voice, but it was very pure. She could sing prettily in tune and she had the best face in the world.

The improvement in her singing since she went to England has been remarkable. She told me Shirley Bassey had been a big influence on her. After hearing Bassey, she worked at developing her head voice to sound like a chest voice, the way Bassey uses hers. The power she's developed is amazing.

Ian still sees Olivia whenever she is in Australia. He reckons that he and his wife, Jan, are the first people she calls after her family.

Jan and Olivia are good mates. We've often had dinner together, the three of us, and tried not to talk about the old times.

I still get nervous whenever Jan and Olivia get together. My wife has a wicked sense of humour, droll and sarcastic, and they never let up on me.

When I first met Jan, she knew, of course, that I used to take Olivia out. It was not long afterwards that Olivia returned home for a visit, and they met briefly once.

I was busy trying to keep them apart actually. As I said, Olivia and I nearly took up where we'd left off, and I have to admit that I was doing a bit of juggling between Olivia and Jan for a short while.

They got together behind my back some time later, and it was all Jan's doing. She was inquisitive about Olivia.

I was at the home of bass player Ron Terry one day, going through music with him. Jan had arranged to pick me up, but she was late.

I asked her where she had been, and she said she had gone to a shop which was being opened by Olivia and Pat Carroll, and had driven Olivia home. The reason she was late was that she and Olivia had had a long talk.

They had, too. They'd talked about the times I'd broken dates with Olivia because I was supposed to be recording, and broken dates with Jan because of rehearsals. They compared notes and knew exactly what had been going on.

They became firm friends after that, which I think shows what a marvellous woman Jan is.

What does Ian think of recent reports that Olivia wants to settle down and have babies and may be close to marriage with American dancer Matt Lattanzi?

Well, she loves children, I've no doubt of that. She spoils her sister's children rotten - and my kids too.

As for Lattanzi, I know she is very keen on him because she told me so. But I worry about their age difference. She's 33 and he's 22. I wouldn't guess whether she'd marry him. Olivia is an enigma to me.

I knew her very well, and in those days she always appeared to me to have little or no ambition. I thought that her success was due to her happy knack of being in the right place at the right time plus the undoubted assets of her pretty voice and that great face.

But it appears now that she was, in fact, very ambitious and knew exactly where she was going and what to do to get there.

Photo captions:

RIGHT: Ian hosting The New Price Is Right.
BELOW: In the days when he sang in shows with old flame Olivia Newton-John - an enigma to me. LEFT: Olivia starting out for stardom.