Devoted To Olivia
Douglas Mcpherson celebrates the long and varied career of Olivia Newton-john.
- The People's Friend
FOR many of us, Olivia Newton-john will always be Sandy, the highschooler who danced with John Travolta in “Grease”. The celebration of 1950s culture was at the time the highest-ever-grossing musical film, eclipsing even “The Sound Of Music”.
Even those who didn’t see the flick would have known its biggest songs, “You’re The One That I Want” and “Summer Nights”.
Olivia’s high-spirited duets with John Travolta spent a total of 16 weeks atop the UK chart in 1978, meaning they were never off the radio.
The film clips of John and Olivia dancing around in a fairground closed every episode of “Top Of The Pops” throughout that long, hot summer.
“You’re The One That I Want” is in fact still the UK’S fifth biggest-selling single ever, with over two million sold.
Olivia received an Oscar nomination for her ballad from the film, “Hopelessly Devoted To You”.
Yet she was to go on to even greater pop success – and she’d already had a long and successful career before starring in “Grease”.
Among those she inspired was Kylie Minogue, who said, “Since I was ten years old, I have loved and looked up to Olivia Newton-john. And I always will.”
Olivia was born in Cambridge on September 26, 1948.
Her father was Welsh and her mother German. Her maternal grandfather was Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born.
Her family emigrated to Australia when she was six and, despite her international career and later home on a ranch in California, she always considered herself Australian.
Having formed a vocal group called Sol Four at the age of fourteen, Olivia developed her singing career on Australian TV shows “The Happy Show” and “The Go!! Show”.
In 1965 she entered a TV talent show and won a trip to Britain, where she formed a touring duo with Aussie singer Pat Carroll as Pat and Olivia.
Olivia’s breakthrough came in 1971, when her cover of Bob Dylan’s “If Not For You” hit number seven on the UK chart.
Olivia had pop hits but she also enjoyed success with country music, too.
After turning to material such as “Banks Of The Ohio” and John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads”, Olivia was embraced by America’s country music fans.
Her country hits included “Let Me Be There” and “I Honestly Love You”, which was also her first song to top the US pop chart.
In 1974, Olivia beat country legends Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn to be named the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year.
In the same year, she represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest with “Long Live Love”, coming fourth behind winners ABBA.
In the next couple of years her silky blend of pop and country styles saw her place ten singles at the top of America’s Adult Contemporary chart, including “Come On Over” and “Don’t Stop Believin’”.
When offered a part in “Grease”, Olivia had reservations about playing a teenager at the age of twenty-nine.
She insisted on a screen test with “Saturday Night Fever” star John Travolta who, at twenty-three, was himself a little old for school.
“John was charming and really wanted me to do it,” she recalled. “That was one of the deciding factors.
“We became great friends and he was very helpful to me on set, as I was not an experienced actress.
“Everything about making the film was fun,” Olivia continued, “but if I had to pick a favourite moment, it
was the transformation from what I call Sandy One to Sandy Two.
“When I put on that tight black outfit to sing ‘You’re The One That I Want’, I got a very different reaction from the guys on the set.”
In 2019, Olivia’s “Sandy Two” outfit fetched $405,000 at auction.
Rod Stewart, meanwhile, said, “Her Spandex trousers were the inspiration for my ‘Do Ya Think I’m Sexy’ era.”
Olivia’s image change during the movie proved to be a watershed in her career as she ditched the clean-cut look and sound of her country years for a new pop queen persona.
It reached number seven in the UK, but “Physical” topped the American chart for 10 weeks and the Canadian chart for five.
Her other big hits include “A Little More Love”, the UK chart-topper “Xanadu”, and her duet with Cliff Richard, “Suddenly”.
After a career break in which she became a mother, Olivia returned to more mellow material, such as the folk-flavoured 2017 album “Liv On”.
However, she remained proud of the impact she made in “Grease”.
“None of us could have predicted we’d still be talking about it more than thirty years later,” she said.
“I get women saying, ‘Oh, I used to be you, standing in front of the mirror with a hairbrush, singing.’
“I have little girls come to my show wearing Pink Ladies jackets. They’re nine or ten years old and they’ve just discovered it.”
In 2012 she and Travolta made a Christmas album and sang a duet called “I Think You Might Like It” – a sequel to “You’re The One That I Want” by the same writer, John Farrar.
They made a video wearing similar outfits to the ones from the film and the chemistry between them was undiminished.
Olivia was diagnosed with cancer in 1992 and became a campaigner for cancer research.
Her charity, the Olivia Newton-john Foundation, has raised millions of pounds for research.
Her husband John Easterling called her “a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years, sharing her journey with breast cancer.”
In 2020, she was made a dame in the New Year’s Honours list.
When Olivia passed away on August 8, 2022, aged seventy-three, her “Grease” co-star Stockard Channing, who played Rizzo, said, “I don’t know if I’ve known a lovelier human being.”
John Travolta wrote on social media, “Your impact was incredible. I love you so much. We will see you down the road and we will all be together again.” ■
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