Don't Stop Believin'($10.08Value)

Description

Legendary musician, actress, activist, and icon Olivia Newton-John's fascinating life story—from her unforgettable rise to fame in the classic musical Grease to her passionate advocacy for health in light of her long battle with cancer. Perfect for fans of Tina Turner’s My Love Story and Sally Field’s In Pieces , this New York Times bestseller is an extraordinary can’t-miss memoir. For more than five decades, Olivia Newton-John was one of our most successful and adored entertainers. A four-time Grammy Award winner, she was one of the world’s bestselling recording artists of all time, with more than 100 million albums sold. Her starring roles in the iconic movies Grease and Xanadu catapulted her into super-stardom. In addition to her music and screen successes, Olivia was perhaps best known for her strength, courage, and grace. After her own personal journeys with cancer, she became an inspiration for millions around the world. A tireless advocate for countless charities, her true passion was founding the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre in her hometown of Melbourne, Australia. Olivia radiated joy, hope, and compassion—and was determined to be a force for good in the world. Here, she shares her journey, from Melbourne schoolgirl to international superstar, in this deeply personal book. Candid and moving, Don’t Stop Believin’ is Olivia Newton-John’s story in her own words for the very first time. Olivia Newton-John, AO, OBE, was an English-born, Australian-raised singer, actress, and philanthropist who was recently the recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from La Trobe University. With a career spanning more than five decades and more than 100 million albums sold, Olivia’s successes include four Grammys; numerous Country Music, American Music, Billboard, and People’s Choice Awards; an Emmy Award; ten #1 hits; and more than fifteen top-10 singles. She also scored another #1 hit, this time on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart, with “You Have to Believe,” a duet with her daughter, Chloe Lattanzi—becoming the first mother/daughter duo to top this Billboard Chart. In 1978, her costarring role with John Travolta in Grease catapulted Olivia into superstardom and to date it remains the most successful movie musical of all time. In 2018, the film celebrated its fortieth anniversary. Olivia was a longtime activist for environmental and animal rights issues. Her personal journeys with cancer led to a partnership with Austin Health and the creation of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness & Research Centre (ONJCWRC) on the Austin Campus in her hometown of Melbourne, Australia. She was also co-owner of the award-winning Gaia Retreat & Spa near Byron Bay. She passed away in 2022 at the age of seventy-three. Don’t Stop Believin’ ONE Sail into Tomorrow If a ship of dreams bid me come, Would I board it? I am a young girl racing home from school across the grass on the grounds of Ormond College in Melbourne, Australia. I’m running home to the music of nature. Birds are serenading me—kookaburras, parrots, crows, and those magpies with the large wings and scary beaks that hover and hide in the trees. Oh, those magpies! Sometimes I would have to cover my small blond head with my schoolbooks as those huge, striking black-and-white birds swooped down on me. I can still hear the sound of the brisk wind in their feathers that brushed so close to my ears as I walked under the gum trees that held their nests. Magpies become very protective in the spring, guarding their homes and families. Music was a big part of my home and family as well. My mum said I could carry a tune as young as two years old, and soon I knew the words and would sing harmonies to every song on the radio. I believe I got this gift from my father, Brinley “Brin” Newton-John, who was Welsh and had a beautiful bass-baritone singing voice. He could have been an opera singer but chose to become an academic because he was so critical of himself and didn’t think he was good enough. He had one recording of himself on an old black acetate disc but destroyed it because there was one bad note in it. (I wonder where I got my perfectionism from?) My mum, Irene Helene Born, was the daughter of Nobel Prize–winning Max Born, a German physicist and mathematician who was one of the founders of quantum mechanics. Albert Einstein was a close friend, and when my mother was a young girl, Einstein spent many evenings in her family house playing the violin while my grandfather played piano. My mother would later translate a book of letters between Albert Einstein and Max Born called The Born–Einstein Letters. My German grandfather was the first person to sign an antinuclear proliferation treaty because he was strongly opposed to war. He was also a good friend of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist credited with being the father of the atomic bomb, but my grandfather refused to collaborate with him on anything that was destr