Livvy Kicks Off again
OLIVIA Newton-John took to the stage last night with enough spunk to prove she is still devoted to the musical which redefined her career two decades ago. Until she played doe-eyed Sandy Olsen in Grease, Newton-John was the quintessential girl next door. When her character broke out into a leather-jacketed bad girl in the film’s finale, Newton-John says she relished the chance to join her. “It was a very important thing to me, a coming of age,” she said minutes before going on stage to make her encore appearance two decades since Grease made its debut. “It gave me the courage to step out in another direction.”
Newton-John burst onto the stage last night to perform a tribute to mark the 20th anniversary of Grease with Jon Stevens playing the film’s quintessential ’50s heart throb Danny Zuko. The spectacular was the backdrop for the Super League grand final clash between the Brisbane Broncos and the Cronulla Sharks. In front of a crowd of 62,000 she rejoined the gang for one night only. Before taking to the stage, Newton-John is calm, almost ethereal, but admits to pre-stage jitters. “I always get nervous before performances. But I’d better get used to it,” she says, referring to the fact that Grease is to be re-released theatrically worldwide next year.
Newton-John is no stranger to the tumult of fame she split from long time partner actor Matt Lattanzi three years ago, and is now a single mum to daughter Chloe with homes in Los Angeles and Byron Bay. She fought a public battle with breast cancer, emerging victorious and even made time in her hectic Australian schedule last week to speak at a lunch honouring Olympic champion Raelene Boyle, who is also fighting cancer.
One of the first Australians to hit fame in Hollywood, Newton-John says she was so busy enjoying her work, she didn’t notice the downside “When you’re young you don’t think about the problems, you just enjoy what you’re doing. It was just very exciting,” she says. “The magic-of showbusiness is you don’t know what’s going to happen. You can be washing a car one day and making a movie the next.”
The appeal of Grease with the slick T-Birds, and the stylish Pink ladies, of which her Sandy was eventually one is its timelessness Newton-John says. “It was a time of innocence, and the movie was larger than life, like a cartoon,” she says. “You have the pedal skirts, the colours, the hairstyles, and the kids are a little rebellious but not so rebellious that a seven or eight year-old can’t join in. It’s kind of charming, there isn’t any violence and the music is catchy.”
A lot has changed in 20 years, she agrees citing the single most defining moment of her life as the day her daughter Chloe was born. “The birth of my child is the biggest joy in my life,” she says. “It takes the focus off you onto the next generation and suddenly there are issues, the environment, and wanting to make the world better for her.”
Newton-John has evolved from an actor with a passion for fauna to a vocal campaigner for environmental issues.