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Jason 'Jack' Donovan (born 1 June 1968) is an Australian actor and singer. He initially achieved fame in the Australian soap opera Neighbours, before beginning a career in music in 1988. In the UK he has sold over 3 million records, and his début album Ten Good Reasons was one of the highest-selling albums of 1989 with UK sales of over 1.5 million copies. He has had four UK No. 1 singles, one of which was "Especially for You", his 1988 duet with Kylie Minogue. In more recent years, he has returned to acting on television and in stage musicals.
Jason Donovan was born in Malvern, Melbourne, is the son of actor Terence Donovan, who also appeared in Neighbours as Doug Willis, and Sue McIntosh. His half-sister is former Neighbours star Stephanie McIntosh. Donovan attended De La Salle College, Malvern. His girlfriend since 1998 and the mother of his children is Angela Malloch, a former stage manager. He has three children, a daughter, Jemma (born 28 March 2000) a son, Zac (born 22 March 2001), and daughter, Molly (born 9 March 2011). Donovan and Malloch were married in Bali in 2008.
He was the subject of an episode of the BBC TV series Who Do You Think You Are? on 30 August 2010 in which he discovered he is a descendant of the pioneer William Cox, who built the first road across Australia's Blue Mountains in 1814. Donovan also confirmed he is of Jewish descent through his maternal great-grandmother, Eileen Dawson (née Lyons). His great-great grandparents Joseph & Rosetta Lyons originated from Whitechapel, London.
While he was still appearing in Neighbours, Donovan followed Minogue (who had already left the series by this point) in signing a recording contract with Mushroom Records in Australia, and with PWL in the UK. His first single, "Nothing Can Divide Us", was released in 1988. Like Minogue's material, it was written and produced by Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman (known as Stock Aitken Waterman). The single reached number five in the UK, number one in Hong Kong and Japan, and the top 40 in several other countries.
Donovan's next single was a duet with Minogue. "Especially for You" was released in December 1988, and after spending four weeks at No. 2 in the UK, it hit No. 1 in January 1989. It was the fourth-highest selling single in the UK in 1988, and 17th in Australia for 1989. Donovan and Minogue also dated for a time during this period.
His next single, "Too Many Broken Hearts," reached number one in the UK in March 1989. He released his début album, Ten Good Reasons, in May 1989, which also reached number one (for three weeks). For two weeks, Donovan held the number one positions in the singles chart and the albums chart simultaneously, when his next single, a cover of Brian Hyland's "Sealed With a Kiss", entered the UK charts at number one. Between 1988 and 1992, Donovan garnered 16 Top 40 hit singles in the UK.
In December 1989, he took part in Band Aid II's version of "Do They Know it's Christmas", which also included Minogue.
Donovan continued to act alongside his pop career, and in 1990 he appeared in his first feature film Blood Oath (aka Prisoners of the Sun).
With questions about his ability to sing, and the break-up of his relationship with Minogue due to her relationship with INXS singer Michael Hutchence, in 1991 Donovan accepted the lead role in the restaged London Palladium version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, directed by Steven Pimlott. Donovan had his third solo UK #1 single with one of its tracks, Any Dream Will Do, while the production won the 1992 Laurence Olivier Awards for set design and costume design. However, Donovan later left the production citing "exhaustion" as the reason, and he was replaced in 1993 by TV presenter Phillip Schofield.
In 1992, Donovan launched a successful libel action against The Face magazine which had published allegations that he was gay. Donovan won £200,000 in damages and the magazine had to pay a further £100,000 in costs, but the action of his lawsuit made him appear homophobic to some sections of the media and had the effect of alienating much of his audience. Donovan tried to make amends and claimed that he did not sue the magazine out of greed or because he was homophobic, but because he had been accused of lying to his fans. He also came to an agreement with the publishers of the magazine, which would have closed down had they paid him the full amount he was awarded (though this amount could well have been reduced upon appeal anyway). Regardless, Donovan's career never recovered from his act of litigation. Although he had been a mild drug user who had smoked cannabis joints up until this point, in the months after his libel action Donovan began using cocaine. In a 2007 interview in the magazine Marie Claire and also in his 2007 autobiography Between The Lines: My Story Uncut, Donovan admitted that suing The Face was the biggest mistake of his life.
Now no longer signed to PWL, who had released his first two albums and a "greatest hits" compilation, Donovan moved to Polydor Records. The year after his libel action against "The Face", he released his third album, All Around The World (1993). However, the album was not a success and failed to make the UK Top 20 (all of Donovan's albums up until then had been Top 10) and was not released at all in his native Australia. Donovan was subsequently dropped by his new record company, effectively marking the end of his career as a pop star.
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