Tributes pour in for singer-actor Olivia Newton-John, who passed away at 73

When Grease launched in 1978, it featured star-crossed lovers, polar opposites, correct girl-bad boy, slick leather-based jackets versus pastel cardigans, and a relationship rule that pop psychology will without problems rubbish: alternate your self for your partner. Grease used to be the authentic excessive faculty musical and Sandy, performed with the aid of Olivia Newton-John, was once the iconic blonde, blue-eyed, demure “girl-next-door” of Hollywood.

 

Newton-John died on Monday at her ranch in Southern California at age seventy three She was once identified with breast most cancers in 1992 and had lived with the ailment on and off due to the fact then. Since her death, quite a few followers and friends invoked her most well-known position and posted on social media, mourning the passing of “Our Sandy”.

 

Actor John Travolta, who performed horrific boy Danny Zuko contrary Olivia Newton-John’s Sandy, tweeted, “My dearest Olivia, you made all of our lives so a good deal better. Your influence used to be incredible. I love you so much. We will see you down the street and we will all be collectively again. Yours from the first second I noticed you and forever! Your Danny, your John!”

Newton-John and Travolta, who had been 29 and 23 at the time of filming Grease, collectively gave some cult classics with the movie’s soundtrack. You’re the One That I Want, Hopelessly Devoted to You and Summer Nights had been constant on pop charts throughout the world.

Newton-John, a four-time Grammy winner, started out performing as a infant whilst in Australia, with weekly pop shows, and reached superstardom after transferring to the US. Her first hit got here in 1971 with the Bob Dylan u . s . rock number, If Not for You. Let Me Be There, her country-influenced song, was once her first pinnacle 10 single in the US when it launched in 1973 and gained her a Grammy for fine woman united states vocalist. In 1974, she represented the UK in Eurovision, with the song Long Live Love. She completed fourth, at the back of Abba.

 

Her country-pop picture was once shattered with Grease, mainly with the transformation of “good Sandy” into “bad Sandy” in the film’s finale. The metamorphosis into a “Grease girl” was once supposed to suit Danny’s image, with modifications in each and every element of right Sandy’s trend sense. In vicinity of the best ponytail got here a large curly mane, vivid make-up with pink lipstick, and spandex trousers alternatively of flouncy skirts. Topping it all off, a cigarette. It stays one of Hollywood’s most memorable makeovers.

 

Singer Rod Stewart posted on Instagram, with a photo of “bad Sandy”: “Her spandex trousers in Grease have been my concept for my ‘Da ya suppose I’m sexy’ era.” Newton-John’s black suit, which ought to contest with Marilyn Monroe’s sheer gown for the tightest fit, grew to become a trend craze. The ensemble is replicated on Halloween, costume events and pink carpets even these days by means of celebrities such as Gigi Hadid, Leann Rimes and Hailey Bieber. Singer Mariah Carey tweeted that she dressed up as “Bad Sandy” for Halloween in the fifth grade and “thought I was once everything”.

Olivia Newton-John had as soon as cited that she had to be stitched into the skin-tight pants due to the fact they have been made in the 1950s. In 2019, she auctioned the pants and different profession memorabilia to increase cash for the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Centre in Melbourne, Australia, that she set up in 2012. The centre has been concerned in about 200 medical trials for a range of cancers, together with brain, bowel, breast, melanoma, gastrointestinal, head and neck, pancreatic, prostate and lung cancer, in accordance to The Guardian. “I’ve realised over the years, mainly when you go thru stuff, that stuff isn’t what’s important,” she instructed Reuters in 2019. The pants and the jacket offered for $405,700, extra than double the public sale estimate.

Much like her film avatar, in actual life, Newton-John’s photograph was once often “sweet” and by no means “sexy”. Things modified with her track Let’s Get Physical in 1981, which appeared to be about the Eighties health craze (hello, leotards) however used to be suggestive of sex, with traces such as There’s nothing left to discuss about/Unless it horizontally.

 

Let’s Get Physical modified the way audiences considered Olivia Newton-John. The music used to be banned on some radio and TV stations for being too sexual. Yet, the megastar herself used to be oblivious of her song’s innuendo. She informed ET in 2021 that she freaked out solely after she recorded the music and instructed her supervisor to kill it. He stated to her that it’s already on the charts. “It’s doing truly well, we can’t quit it,” she remembered him saying. And had been audiences satisfied for it. Let’s Get Physical stays her all-time largest hit and the No.1 hit of Billboard’s Eighties chart.