1.
Olivia Newton-John
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Olivia Newton-John, AO, OBE is a British-Australian singer, songwriter and actress. She is a four-time Grammy award winner who has amassed five number-one and ten other Top Ten Billboard Hot 100 singles, eleven of her singles and fourteen of her albums have been certified gold by the RIAA. She has sold an estimated 100 million records worldwide, making her one of the worlds best-selling artists of all time and she starred in Grease, which featured one of the most successful soundtracks in Hollywood history. Newton-John has been a long-time activist for environmental and animal rights issues, since surviving breast cancer in 1992, she has been an advocate for health awareness becoming involved with various charities, health products and fundraising efforts. Her business interests have included launching several product lines for Koala Blue and she is the mother of one daughter, Chloe Rose Lattanzi, with her first husband, actor Matt Lattanzi. Her second husband is John Easterling, Newton-John was born in Cambridge, England, to Irene Helene, the eldest child of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born and Welsh father, Brinley Bryn Newton-John. Her mothers family had left Germany before World War II to avoid the Nazi regime and she is a third cousin of comedian Ben Elton. Her maternal great-grandfather was jurist Victor Ehrenberg and her matrilineal great-grandmothers father was jurist Rudolf von Jhering. Newton-John is the youngest of three children, following brother Hugh, a doctor, and sister Rona, an actress who was married to Grease co-star Jeff Conaway from 1980 until their divorce in 1985. Newton-Johns father was an MI5 officer on the Enigma project at Bletchley Park who took Rudolf Hess into custody during the Second World War. In 1954, when she was six, Newton-Johns family emigrated to Melbourne, Australia and she attended Christ Church Grammar School, and then University High School, adjacent to Ormond College. At fourteen, Newton-John formed a short-lived all-girl group, Sol Four and she became a regular on local Australian radio and television shows including HSV-7s The Happy Show where she performed as Lovely Livvy. She also appeared on the Go Show where she met future partner, Pat Carroll. Newton-John was initially reluctant to use the prize she had won, a trip to Britain, Newton-John recorded her first single, Till You Say Youll Be Mine Forever, in Britain for Decca Records in 1966. While in Britain, Newton-John missed her then-boyfriend, Ian Turpie, with whom she had co-starred in the Australian telefilm, Newton-John repeatedly booked trips back to Australia that her mother subsequently cancelled. Newton-Johns outlook changed when Pat Carroll also moved to the UK, the two formed a duo called Pat and Olivia and toured nightclubs in Europe. After Carrolls visa expired forcing her to return to Australia, Newton-John remained in Britain to pursue solo work until 1975 and she became engaged to The Shadows guitarist Bruce Welch, but they never married. Newton-John was recruited for the group Toomorrow formed by American producer Don Kirshner, in 1970, the group starred in a science fiction musical film and recorded an accompanying soundtrack album both named after the group
2.
Physical (album)
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Physical is the ninth full-length studio album by British-Australian singer-songwriter Olivia Newton-John, released on 13 October 1981 by MCA Records. The album was produced and partly written by her record producer John Farrar. Recorded and mixed at David J. Holmans studio in Hollywood, California, Physical became one of Newton-Johns most controversial and sexual records, musically, the album features considerable use of synthesizers and explores lyrical themes such as love and relationships, sex, kinesthetics and environmental protection. Upon its release, the album received positive reviews from music critics. The album charted high in several countries, including the United States, Japan and Newton-Johns native Australia and it also ranks among the best-selling albums by Australian solo artists, selling more than ten million copies worldwide. The albums title track was a phenomenon, staying ten weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100, at the time. The song and its video were controversial, having been banned or edited by several radio stations. The single was followed by Make a Move on Me, another top worldwide hit, Landslide, which failed to enter the majority of musical charts, had a music video featuring Newton-Johns boyfriend Matt Lattanzi, to whom she had dedicated the album. A video compilation, Olivia Physical, was produced, featuring videos of all songs from the album. The material was a commercial and critical success, and earned Newton-John a Grammy Award for Video of the Year, the album was promoted with Newton-Johns 1982 North American Physical Tour, performances from which a home video entitled Olivia in Concert was produced. The Physical era marked the height of Newton-Johns solo career, gaining her wide acclaim as one of the most successful artists of the early 1980s. In 1978, Newton-John starred as the lead, Sandy, in the musical film Grease. Before the film, Newton-John was known for pop and adult contemporary songs. Later that same year, Newton-John released the studio album Totally Hot, Physical was recorded and released in 1981, marking the longest gap between Newton-John studio albums at the time, from 1971 to 1978, she recorded at least one studio album per year. Newton-John feared that she could be overexposed with many works released in a short period, Physical followed Newton-Johns new image, perceived as a more sexualized and mature record. It also marked her first studio album without any country tracks, the new music style generated some criticism from the country-music community and Newton-Johns old fans, in a Billboard article, she said, You might lose a few fans but you gain others. You have to do whats comfortable, ive gotten the confidence to be more adventurous whereas in the past I didnt think it was the time. The lead single Physical was written by Terry Shaddick and Newton-Johns longtime friend Steve Kipner, when Newton-Johns then-manager Lee Kramer accidentally heard the demo, he immediately sent the song to her, but initially she didnt want to release the song because it was too cheeky
3.
Arena
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An arena is an enclosed area, often circular or oval-shaped, designed to showcase theater, musical performances, or sporting events. The word derives from Latin harena, a particularly fine/smooth sand used to absorb blood in ancient arenas such as the Colosseum in Rome and it is composed of a large open space surrounded on most or all sides by tiered seating for spectators. The key feature of an arena is that the event space is the lowest point, arenas are usually designed to accommodate a large number of spectators. The term arena is used as a synonym for a very large venue such as Pasadenas Rose Bowl. The use of one term over the other has mostly to do with the type of event, the home of the Duke University mens and womens basketball teams would qualify as an arena, but the facility is called Cameron Indoor Stadium. Domed stadiums, which, like arenas, are enclosed but have the larger playing surfaces, such examples of these would be terms such as the arena of war or the arena of love or the political arena. In many fighting games, the stage that opponents are fought in is called an arena. Ice hockey arena Amphitheatre List of indoor arenas by capacity List of stadiums by capacity
4.
Stadium
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Pausanias noted that for about half a century the only event at the ancient Greek Olympic festival was the race that comprised one length of the stade at Olympia, where the word stadium originated. In modern times, a stadium is officially a stadium when at least 50% of the capacity is an actual building. If the majority of the capacity is formed by grasshills, the venue is not officially considered a stadium. Most of the stadiums with a capacity of at least 10,000 are used for football, or soccer. A large amount of sports venues are also used for concerts. Stadium is the Latin form of the Greek word stadion, a measure of length equalling the length of 600 human feet, as feet are of variable length the exact length of a stadion depends on the exact length adopted for 1 foot at a given place and time. Although in modern terms 1 stadion =600 ft, in a historical context it may actually signify a length up to 15% larger or smaller. The equivalent Roman measure, the stadium, had a similar length — about 185 m -, the English use of stadium comes from the tiered infrastructure surrounding a Roman track of such length. Most dictionaries provide for both stadiums and stadia as valid English plurals, although etymological purists sometimes apply stadia only to measures of length in excess of 1 stadium. The oldest known stadium is the one in Olympia, in the western Peloponnese, Greece, initially the Games consisted of a single event, a sprint along the length of the stadium. The stadion, a measure of length, may be related to the Stadium, Greek and Roman stadiums have been found in numerous ancient cities, perhaps the most famous being the Stadium of Domitian, in Rome. The excavated and refurbished ancient Panathenaic stadium hosted a version of the Olympic Games in 1870,1875,1896 and 1906. The excavation and refurbishment of the stadium was part of the legacy of the Greek national benefactor Evangelos Zappas, the first stadiums to be built in the modern era were basic facilities, designed for the single purpose of fitting as many spectators in as possible. One such early stadium was the Lansdowne Road Stadium, the brainchild of Henry Dunlop, banned from locating sporting events at Trinity College, Dunlop built the stadium in 1872. Some 300 cartloads of soil from a trench beneath the railway were used to raise the ground, other early stadiums from this period in the UK include the Stamford Bridge stadium and Anfield stadium. In the U. S. However, many of these caught fire. All of the 19th-century wooden parks were replaced, some only a few years. Goodison Park was the first purpose-built football stadium in the world, walton-based building firm Kelly brothers were instructed to erect two uncovered stands that could each accommodate 4,000 spectators
5.
VHS
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The Video Home System is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes. Developed by Victor Company of Japan in the early 1970s, it was released in Japan in late 1976, from the 1950s, magnetic tape video recording became a major contributor to the television industry, via the first commercialized video tape recorders. At that time, the devices were used only in professional environments such as television studios. In the 1970s, videotape entered home use, creating the video industry and changing the economics of the television. The television industry viewed videocassette recorders as having the power to disrupt their business, in the 1980s and 1990s, at the peak of VHSs popularity, there were videotape format wars in the home video industry. Two of the formats, VHS and Betamax, received the most media exposure, VHS eventually won the war, dominating 60 percent of the North American market by 1980 and emerging as the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period. Optical disc formats later began to better quality than analog consumer video tape such as standard. The earliest of these formats, LaserDisc, was not widely adopted, however, after the introduction of the DVD format in 1997, VHSs market share began to decline. By 2008, DVD had replaced VHS as the preferred method of distribution. After several attempts by other companies, the first commercially successful VTR, at a price of US$50,000 in 1956, and US$300 for a 90-minute reel of tape, it was intended only for the professional market. Kenjiro Takayanagi, a broadcasting pioneer then working for JVC as its vice president, saw the need for his company to produce VTRs for the Japan market. In 1959, JVC developed a video tape recorder. In 1964, JVC released the DV220, which would be the companys standard VTR until the mid-1970s, in 1969 JVC collaborated with Sony Corporation and Matsushita Electric in building a video recording standard for the Japanese consumer. The effort produced the U-matic format in 1971, which was the first format to become a unified standard, U-matic was successful in business and some broadcast applications, but due to cost and limited recording time very few of the machines were sold for home use. Soon after, Sony and Matsushita broke away from the collaboration effort, Sony started working on Betamax, while Matsushita started working on VX. JVC released the CR-6060 in 1975, based on the U-matic format, Sony and Matsushita also produced U-matic systems of their own. In 1971, JVC engineers Yuma Shiraishi and Shizuo Takano put together a team to develop a consumer-based VTR, by the end of 1971 they created an internal diagram titled VHS Development Matrix, which established twelve objectives for JVCs new VTR. These included, The system must be compatible with any television set
6.
LaserDisc
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LaserDisc is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978. It was not a format in Europe and Australia when first released but was popular in the 1990s. Its superior video and audio quality made it a choice among videophiles. The technologies and concepts behind LaserDisc were the foundation for later optical disc formats including Compact Disc, DVD, Optical video recording technology, using a transparent disc, was invented by David Paul Gregg and James Russell in 1958. The Gregg patents were purchased by MCA in 1968, by 1969, Philips had developed a videodisc in reflective mode, which has advantages over the transparent mode. MCA and Philips then decided to combine their efforts and first publicly demonstrated the video disc in 1972. LaserDisc was first available on the market, in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 15,1978, Philips produced the players while MCA produced the discs. The Philips-MCA cooperation was not successful, and discontinued after a few years, several of the scientists responsible for the early research founded Optical Disc Corporation. In 1979, the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago opened its Newspaper exhibit which used interactive LaserDiscs to allow visitors to search for the front page of any Chicago Tribune newspaper and this was a very early example of public access to electronically stored information in a museum. The first LaserDisc title marketed in North America was the MCA DiscoVision release of Jaws in 1978, the last title released in North America was Paramounts Bringing Out the Dead in 2000. The last Japanese released movie was the Hong Kong film Tokyo Raiders from Golden Harvest, a dozen or so more titles continued to be released in Japan, until the end of 2001. Production of LaserDisc players continued until January 14,2009, when Pioneer stopped making them and it was estimated that in 1998, LaserDisc players were in approximately 2% of U. S. households. By comparison, in 1999, players were in 10% of Japanese households, LaserDisc was released on June 10,1981 in Japan, and a total of 3.6 million LaserDisc players were sold there. A total of 16.8 million LaserDisc players were sold worldwide, by the early 2000s, LaserDisc was completely replaced by DVD in the North American retail marketplace, as neither players nor software were then produced. Players were still exported to North America from Japan until the end of 2001, the format has retained some popularity among American collectors, and to a greater degree in Japan, where the format was better supported and more prevalent during its life. In Europe, LaserDisc always remained an obscure format and it was chosen by the British Broadcasting Corporation for the BBC Domesday Project in the mid-1980s, a school-based project to commemorate 900 years since the original Domesday Book in England. From 1991 up until the early 2000s, the BBC also used LaserDisc technology to play out the channel idents, the standard home video LaserDisc was 30 cm in diameter and made up of two single-sided aluminum discs layered in plastic. Although appearing similar to compact discs or DVDs, LaserDiscs used analog video stored in the domain with analog FM stereo sound
7.
Billboard (magazine)
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Billboard is an American entertainment media brand owned by the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a division of Eldridge Industries. It publishes pieces involving news, video, opinion, reviews, events and it is also known for its music charts, including the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200, tracking the most popular singles and albums in different genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows, Billboard was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegens interest in 1900 for $500, in the 1900s, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs and burlesque shows. It also created a service for travelling entertainers. Billboard began focusing more on the industry as the jukebox, phonograph. Many topics it covered were spun-off into different magazines, including Amusement Business in 1961 to cover outdoor entertainment so that it could focus on music. After Donaldson died in 1925, Billboard was passed down to his children and Hennegans children, until it was sold to investors in 1985. The first issue of Billboard was published in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 1,1894 by William Donaldson, initially, it covered the advertising and bill posting industry and was called Billboard Advertising. At the time, billboards, posters and paper advertisements placed in public spaces were the means of advertising. Donaldson handled editorial and advertising, while Hennegan, who owned Hennegan Printing Co. managed magazine production, the first issues were just eight pages long. The paper had columns like The Bill Room Gossip and The Indefatigable, a department for agricultural fairs was established in 1896. The title was changed to The Billboard in 1897, after a brief departure over editorial differences, Donaldson purchased Hennegans interest in the business in 1900 for $500, to save it from bankruptcy. That May, Donaldson changed it from a monthly to a paper with a greater emphasis on breaking news. He improved editorial quality and opened new offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London and he also re-focused the magazine on outdoor entertainment like fairs, carnivals, circuses, vaudeville and burlesque shows. A section devoted to circuses was introduced in 1900, followed by more prominent coverage of events in 1901. Billboard also covered topics including regulation, a lack of professionalism, economics and it had a stage gossip column covering the private lives of entertainers, a tent show section covering traveling shows and a sub-section called Freaks to order. According to The Seattle Times, Donaldson also published articles attacking censorship, praising productions exhibiting good taste
8.
Two of a Kind (1983 film)
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Two of a Kind is a 1983 American romantic fantasy comedy film directed by John Herzfeld starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. The original musical score was composed by Patrick Williams, Travolta plays a cash strapped inventor while Newton-John plays the bank teller whom he attempts to rob. These two unlikely individuals must come to show compassion for one another in order to delay Gods judgment upon the Earth and this is Travolta and Newton-Johns second film together after 1978s Grease, which was a success. Despite being a critical and commercial failure, the film yielded three singles for Newton-John and a platinum rating for the soundtrack. Four angels — Charlie, Earl, Gonzales, and Ruth — have been in charge of Heaven for the last 25 years. They are playing a match in Heaven when their game is interrupted by God. God agrees to the scheme, and the typical Earth man selected by the angels is Zack Melon — a failed inventor who, threatened by loan sharks, Zack points his gun at bank teller Debbie Wylder, who ostensibly gives him all the money. But, when Zack peers into the sack after the robbery, Zack tracks her down to reclaim his stolen money. While dodging the loan sharks and the interventions of the Devil. Two of a Kind received heavily negative reviews during its release and it currently holds a 20% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The film was nominated for five Razzie Awards, Worst Actor, Worst Actress, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, the movie was nominated for a Stinkers Bad Movie Awards for Worst Picture. The film was salvaged by a soundtrack which yielded three singles for Newton-John, Twist of Fate - No.5 Pop Take a Chance - No.3 AC Livin in Desperate Times - No. Two of a Kind at the Internet Movie Database Two of a Kind at AllMovie Two of a Kind at Rotten Tomatoes Two of a Kind at Box Office Mojo The Two of A Kind Only Olivia movie website
