COUPURE DE PRESS et DIAPORAMA

 

The singer who became a movie star

• The Week (US)
• 19 Aug 2022
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Olivia NewtonJohn’s bright smile was as much her calling card as her sweet voice. The wholesome Australian singer rose to fame in the 1970s with a series of gentle hits including “I Honestly Love You” and “Have You Never Been Mellow.” Then came Grease, the 1978 musical in which she played Sandy, a virginal transfer student who falls for John Travolta’s greaser Danny at a 1950s Southern California high school. The blockbuster—which ends with Sandy morphing into a vixen in skin-tight pants—made NewtonJohn a superstar, propelled by hits including the duet “You’re the One That I Want.” NewtonJohn echoed Sandy’s transformation in her own career, with a turn toward rock and spandex that yielded the steamy “Physical,” which hit No. 1 in 1981. But she always maintained the winsome charm that caused some critics to dismiss her as a lightweight—a charge she never understood.

“It annoys me when people think because it’s commercial, it’s bad,” she said. “If people like it, that’s what it’s supposed to be.”

Olivia Newton-John

Born in Cambridge, England, Newton-John was 5 when her family moved to Melbourne, Australia, said USA Today. “She grew up singing,” and at 16 won a talent show whose prize was a trip to England, where she quit school “to pursue performing full-time.” After some U.K. success, she scored her U.S. breakthrough with the 1973 album Let Me Be There and soon “commandeered both pop and country radio.” When approached to star in Grease, the 28-year-old “was skeptical about playing a high school student,” said NPR. But Travolta wooed her personally, and after the pair did a screen test, she agreed to take the role. “The chemistry was there,” she said.

“Physical” was Newton-John’s biggest hit and her last, said The Washington Post. While her career cooled, she “remained a staple of glossy magazines, which chronicled her personal travails” including a 1992 cancer diagnosis that launched her on a new path as an advocate for cancer research. She continued to record and perform until 2017, when she revealed that the cancer “had returned and metastasized.” In later years she said she was starting to be better known as a breast cancer survivor than as a performer, but was typically upbeat about it. “It makes me proud to be someone who can inspire and help people,” she said. “Maybe that was supposed to be my job all along.”

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