Biography

Australian singer Kylie Minogue was born in Melbourne on 28 May 1968, the daughter of former ballet dancer Carol Minogue (née Ann Jones) and car company accountant Ronald Charles Minogue. She is of English, Irish, and Welsh descent, and was named after the Nyungar word for "boomerang".

She is the eldest of three children: her brother, Brendan Minogue, is a news cameraman in Australia, and her sister, Dannii Minogue, is a singer and television host. The family frequently moved around various suburbs in Melbourne to sustain their living expenses, which Minogue found unsettling as a child.

She would often stay at home reading, sewing, and learning to play violin and piano. When they moved to Surrey Hills, Victoria, she went on to Camberwell High School. During her schooling years, she found it difficult to make friends. She got her HSC with subjects including Arts and Graphics and English.

Minogue described herself as being of "average intelligence" and "quite modest" during her high school years. Growing up, she and her sister Dannii took singing and dancing lessons. A 10-year-old Minogue accompanied Dannii to a hearing arranged by the sisters' aunt, Suzette, and, while producers found Dannii too young, Alan Hardy gave Minogue a minor role in soap opera The Sullivans (1979).

She also appeared in another small role in Skyways (1980). In 1985, she was cast in one of the lead roles in The Henderson Kids. Minogue took time off school to film The Henderson Kids and while Carol was not impressed, Minogue felt that she needed the independence to make it into the entertainment industry.

During filming, co-star Nadine Garner labelled Minogue "fragile" after producers yelled at her for forgetting her lines; she would often cry on set. Minogue was dropped from the second season of the show after producer Alan Hardy felt the need for her character to be "written off". In retrospect, Hardy stated that removing her from the showing "turned out to be the best thing for her".

Interested in following a career in music, Minogue made a demo tape for the producers of weekly music program Young Talent Time, which featured Dannii as a regular performer. Minogue gave her first television singing performance on the show in 1985 but was not invited to join the cast. Minogue was cast in the soap opera Neighbours in 1986, as Charlene Mitchell, a schoolgirl turned garage mechanic. 
 

Neighbours achieved popularity in the UK, and a story arc that created a romance between her character and the character played by Jason Donovan culminated in a wedding episode in 1987 that attracted an audience of 20 million viewers.

Minogue became the first person to win four Logie Awards in one year and was the youngest recipient of the "Gold Logie" as the country's "Most Popular Television Performer", with the result determined by public vote. She was in a relationship with Donovan for three years, until 1989.