Olivia Newton-John

Olivia Newton-John was born in Cambridge, England, but emigrated with her family to Australia as a child. Her maternal grandfather was German physicist Max Born, who won the Nobel Prize in 1954 for his work with Quantum Mechanics.

She competed on the Australian TV show Sing, Sing, Sing and won a trip to Great Britain, where she formed a duo with Pat Carroll (the future wife of John Farrar, who would become Olivia's regular producer and songwriter). In the '80s, the pair reunited to open Koala Blue, a chain of women's clothing boutiques.

Long before the fantasy musical Xanadu notoriously flopped, she starred in another musical sci-fi stinker, Toomorrow (1970). Producer Don Kirshner was hoping to follow-up his success with The Monkees with the title group fronted by Olivia. It didn't work.