Newton-John at a career crossroads
MALIBU - Grammies and awards from music associations and trade publications line the shelves. Everything seems to be in immaculate order. The den is spotless. It looks like no one lives here.
In the middle of the room is a plush, pink, patterned, three-piece, sectional couch. Olivia Newton-John walks in.
She’s all blue eyes. Her face is long and thin and you don’t notice her sloping, button nose except in profile. Her striking, streaked blond hair is parted on the aide and combed across. She doesn’t look like the smiling, round-faced, wholesome cheerleader any more. She appears more womanly than her album covers and photos make her look.
Perhaps that’s because Olivia Newton-John is at a crossroads.
THIS FALL, she finished her first starring motion-picture role in the film version of the Broadway musical, “Grease.” But her long-awaited entry into movies seems to have been at the expense of her music career.
Newton-John didn’t have time to complete her customary second album this year. And her last album, “Making A Good Thing Better,” was not her usual blockbluster because she didn’t have time to perform many concerts to promote the new material.
“I think the next six to nine months will be vital - a turning point in my career,” she says. “I feel better about myself than I probably have in my lifetime. I feel at peace with myself now. I feel like I’m maturing. I feel more in control of myself and what I’m doing. Indecision is my worst weakness. I take a long time to decide. But there’s not that terrible panic that you get when you’re young and not really sure.”
Newton-John feels a need to rejuvenate her music career. Because she didn’t have time to go into into the recording studio, her second album of 1977 is strictly a merchandising effort - a collection of her greatest hits.
Since there are no new songs on the record, Newton-John decided to put together two radio specials - one for Thanksgiving and another for Christmas, featuring her talking with some of her favorite pop and country singers to help maintain her music profile. Furthermore, the ever-busy entertainer will embark on a nationwide promotional tour.
THE DAY BEFORE the interview, Newton-John returned from a rare vacation - two weeks in Rio de Janeiro. Then she flew from New York to Los Angeles to have dinner with Britain’s Prince Charles.
The afternoon I arrived, she was tending to her four horses at her handsome ranch on a mountain side in exclusive Malibu. In a couple of days, she will leave on the promotional tour, which Includes Minneapolis on Tuesday.
With all this activity, level-headed seems the best way to describe Newton-John. “I still know who I am,” she says. “That name I see in lights is what the outside world sees. But I’m aware of my own limitations and weaknesses. There’s a great danger when you become successful believing that you’re invincible. I know this isn’t so.”
Success for 27-year-old, English-born, Australian-bred Newton-John has come through song. She had no formal musical training but she won a talent show at age 16 and moved back to England, where she began to make a name for her-self in 1971.
In 1973, she began catching on in U.S. pop and country circles with her interpretations of such songs as “Let Me Be There.” “I Honestly Love You” and “If I Love You.” She was a pretty face with an innocent breathy, little-girl voice who struck a common denominator singing greeting-card lyrics. Critics said her songs were as vacuous as she was wholesome.
NEWTON-JOHN is definitely a polite and proper person. She’s neither naive nor unaware. Nor is she a profound or deep thinker, as one might expect of a child in an academic family (her father is a college headmaster and her grandfather is a Nobel prize-winning physicist).
Newton-John is friendly but not especially talkative. She’s more demure than shy. She prefers not to be photographed this afternoon because she’s tired and doesn’t “look good.”
The entertainer seems easily embarrassed about what she considers to be personal questions (How do you account for your popularity?) and says she is very private. She’s not a strong personality, yet she clearly has inner strength.
We chat about her former backup band that was from Minneapolis; how she chooses the songs she records; her lack of concert tours (“I would like to tour when I want to, but you have to remember the fans.”); the gossip about her and “Grease” co-star John Travolta (“Not true.”); the rumors that she’s gay (“I know I’m not.”), and her virginal image.
IN SHORT, Olivia Newton-John is very much like her music - very pleasant.
However, she plans to head in new directions on her next album. “I’m going to get into more rock,” Newton-John promises. “Not punk. Not aggressive rock. I want to try to bring more energy to the record. It’s always been there. I just haven’t brought it up.”
She hopes to win over skeptical rock critics, who have compared listening to her to drinking 14 milkshakes. “I will win them over. It’s another challenge. It’s nice to have a challenge.”
Newton-John won over country musicians after an initial acrimonious response even though country fans embraced her music immediately. In fact, she helped broaden the boundaries of country music. “When you’re a pioneer you have to expect to be crucified,” Newton-John laughs. “In the old days they used to burn you. Now they just write you up in Melody Maker (a British music magazine).”
Now, just about every magazine from the National Star to the Ladies Home Journal is writing about Olivia Newton-John because of her entrance into acting. She doesn’t like the gossip that goes along with Hollywood, but she liked making the movie.
“I had a good time. It was a little easier than I expected. I was very nervous. I had to do a crying scene and I didn’t think I was going to be able to handle it at all. I just imagined how I’d feel if I were that chick.”
“For me, acting is so close to singing in that it’s interpretation of a mood or feeling. I always try to be myself in the position of this other person. Like (in “Grease”) I would react as an 18-year-old girl in the 1950s who just moved to America from Australia and didn’t know anybody. It was hard to play an ingenue. Everybody else’s character was either crazy, or loud or some definite character. I just had to be this young, silly person. Naive in a way but not too naive. I didn’t want to make it too soppy. In the stage play, she’s really soppy. So I had to bring a bit of strength to her.”
Newton-John also hopes to muster some kind of strength for herself, so she can write more songs. She’s finished only four songs and writing more is one of her new goals. “It’s part of growing,” she says.
“I’m not a driven person, but I wanted to achieve something. What? To be happy. Oh, that’s a stupid thing to say. I’ve got most of the things I want. I guess I want to have a family sometime, which I never thought I’d say. Ultimately, I want to feel I’m a fulfilled person. Whatever that means.”
By Jon Bream, Minneapolis Star Staff Writer