I'm fighting fit
Kylie Minogue caused quite a stir a decade ago when she transformed herself from Charlene, the poodle haired girl-next-door in TV soap Neighbours, into a Madonna-aping, raunchy pop star.
An audience of pre-teen girls abandoned her and her career suffered as a result. She managed to resurrect her pop success in Britain and her native Australia, but it eludes her almost everywhere eise in the world.
Not so for another girl from Down Under who made the same sort. of transformation decades earlier. Olivia Newton-John was more than just the girl-next-door when she broke into the world’s charts in the early 1970s. All saccharine country pop songs and big toothy smiles, she was the wholesome Anglo-Saxon girl every mother wanted her son to marry. Then came the hit musical movie Grease, in which Newton-John played the heroine Sandy, a dowdy nerd who breaks out of her shell and becomes a leather-clad vixen in a bid to snare her one love, Danny (played by John Travolta).
A few years later, she became a worldwide sex symbol, courtesy of the Let’s Get Physical single and accompanying video. By today’s standards neither the song nor video with Newton-John in a tight exercise leotard cavorting around muscular blokes in a gyn-would raise an eyebrow. But in 1983 it was considered scandalous, especially as the promotional photos featured a from-the-rear topless shot of Newton-John in tight jodhpurs.
To anyone who has watched the video on YouTube, the idea that some countries could have been so outraged that they banned it now seema ludicrous
“Oh, my God, when I first saw that video I was worried what people would think,” says Newton-John from Los Angeles, where she spends most of her time these days.
“It was way too sexy-too naughty. I was worried I’d lose my audience. I’d never done anything like that before. In the end, it won me an audience. It was far bigger audience, good for me. Grease had given me the opportunity to change direction.”
Just months from her 60th birthday, and after a highly publicised battle with breast cancer, Newton-John retains the fresh looks that made her a star. But as she embarks on her finst Asian tour, which includes the Hong Kong Coliseum on Sunday night, she says the high-energy dancing days of the Physical video are long behind her. “I won’t be wearing the leotard fur the show, if that’s what you mean,” she says.
John was at the forefront of it. The Physical single, despite its sexual subtext, did encourage people into the gym.
Newton-John leapt onto the bandwagon and released a series of exercise-based videos for all 10 songs on her Physical album. These days, she’s still working a “wellness” angle. Last year, she released an album to accompany yogic meditation called Grace and Gratitude. “It’s a really peaceful CD” says the singer who was born in Cambridge, England.
[The video] was way too sexy-too naughty. I was worried I would lose my audience says the singer
Newton-John’s rise to fame began on TV in Melbourne, where her family moved when she was eight. By her mid-teens she was a regular on Australian daytime TV and by the mid-60s had returned to Britain, where she was part of a singing dun. In 1973, she had her first US hit with the country song Let Me Be There, before representing Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest, with her song Long Live Love, finishing fourth.
A number of appearances on Cliff Richard’s weekly TV show made her a household name in Britain, but she then trained her sights on the US and moved there in 1975, serting up home in Los Angeles two years later. Not long after, Grease turned her world upside down.
“People still come up to me and call me Sandy and ask where Danny is,” she says. “I’m actually very grateful for that movie.” She still keeps in touch with her co-star, Travolta. “Every now and then I’ll see Johnny and he’ll say the same thing-people have asked him where Sandy is.”
Newton-John hasn’t had an easy time during the past decade. Apart from her struggle with cancer, her daughter has anorexia, but she’s reluctant to talk about it, saying only that she lives in Los Angeles to be by her side.
However, she’s keen to discuss the plight of those who battle cancer. “I spoke to Kylie, actually,” she says of Minogue’s fight with the disease in 2005. “I just offered her encouragement. The conversation we had was one between two friends, not two sufferers.”
Newton-John’s recovery from the disease inspired her to get involved in charity work to help others, including raising money for a cancer hospital in Melbourne that’s due to open later this year.
“We just received A$25 million from the Victorian government and Kylie has offered to help me at a later date. It’s really taking off and I’m absolutely delighted about that.”
Olivia Newton-John - Body, Heart & Spirit Tour, Sun, 8.15pm, Hong Kong Coliseum, 9 Cheong Wan Rd, Hung Hom, HK$250-HK$680, Urbtix. Inquiries: 2734 9009