Europeans don't come more cosmopolitan than Jeanette Therese Obstoj. She was born in Britain from a French mother of Italian/Russian extraction and a Polish father of Swedish extraction. Although she has the British nationality and often stresses that she loves the British dearly, she will in the same breath explain that she's "not one of them," referring partly to her un-British and very passionate temperament and partly to the fact that her outlook on the world was very much shaped by her background.

"I was brought up in the shadow of World War II. My mother had been in a concentration camp, and I was told such horrific stories as a child that there was always a feeling of uneasiness, a feeling of danger in the world. The British experience of the war was so different. They felt like they were great heroes and talked of the jolly times and camaraderie of the war. So rather than wanting to go into business or something, I've always been trying to construct a creative world to compensate for the hardships I felt in my own family."

After leaving home she went to St. Martin's Art School in London, but left after a year. She set off for Spain, where she spent an unhappy period working as an au-pair and writing lots of poetry. After coming back to London she accepted a job as the assistant editor for a documentary film company.

By that time her ambition was to become a film director. She worked in the film industry for several years, trying to work her way up and doing "just about everything. I was the assistant producer, assistant director, whatever. All very technical stuff."

She was the assistant director to Richard Williams -- of Roger Rabbit fame -- until she met Rupert Hine in 1974. Apart from becoming romantically involved they also started a creative collaboration which has been the main focus of Obstoj's activities until this day.

"I went from having a quite highly paid job to 25 pounds a week to give my writing a go. It was very hard, but I immediately noticed a change in my life style where I could be more creative."

The first song they ever wrote together was No American Starship which appeared on the first album of Quantum Jump, the group Hine was involved in at the time. She also wrote lyrics for half of the songs on the second Quantum Jump album Barracuda.

In 1980 their collaboration reached great heights on Hine's solo album Immunity. She wrote all the lyrics on this album and has been writing the lyrics for all Hine's record output ever since.

There followed two more Hine solo albums for which she wrote the lyrics: Wave Not Drowning (1982) and The Wildest Wish to Fly (1983). Obstoj also found an outlet for her directorship ambitions when she started directing music videos for these albums and later for Thinkman.

In 1984 she and Hine enjoyed success when they provided the song I Might Have Been Queen for Tina Turner's legendary Private Dancer album and in 1987 they wrote two songs for the follow up Break Every Rule, including the title track. Since 1986 she's been busy with Thinkman, writing the lyrics, conceptualizing the issues they want to address, doing the art direction for the albums and directing some of the Thinkman videos.