The Greasing of Olivia
She vamps on in black-skintight satin pants and sleazy, low-cut blouse relieved only by fire-engine-red heels to match her lipstick and toenails and the glow of a cigarette that's dangling from her lips. She's a greaser's delight.
Olivia Newton-John wouldn't be caught dead in such an outfit, except to star in Grease. In her American film debut, the 29-year-old Australian songbird sends some of her middle-of-the-road fans into a coma. In the last scene, the lady's a tramp. As John Travolta's love in Grease, Newton-John transforms herself from the sugar-flake cheerleader into the sexy slink, circa 1953.
But in real life, Newton-John would rather fight than switch. She wears white-white pants, white jumper and toothy white smile. Everything about her seems wholesome.
Her home in Malibu is shared by six horses, four dogs, two cats and a newly born foal. She calls this menagerie my family.
Right now, the house is also shared by her mother and a nephew over from London for a visit, plus a woman publicist who insists on sitting in on our interview.
Think of me as the wallpaper,
says the publicist. But when I express slight surprise that there is no place in the house for Lee Kramer, Newton-John's longtime friend, there is a gasp - from the wallpaper.
He has never lived here,
snaps Newton-John. I've never lived with any man. In fact, during my breakups with Lee, and there have been quite a few, I've never had an affair with another man. I have only had two affairs ever. But I don't suppose you will believe me.
Newton-John is having a hell of a time being believed these days. During the filming of Grease, she kept denying there was even a hint of a romance between her and Travolta. Now rumor has it that she and the sexy star of Saturday Night Fever were married secretly a few weeks ago. If this is true then it's the quietest wedding I've ever been to,
she cracks.
Inevitably,
she continues, the gossip writers said that John and I were having an affair. It wasn't true. But whenever you work with a guy - and he is single and I am single-people always assume the worst. I have never had that sort of gossip about me before, so I suppose it was something of a novelty. The fact that I was in the middle of another long breakup with Lee at that time made it even worse.
Kramer, 26, a one-time shoe importer who now manages Newton-John's career, has been with her five years. It is one of Hollywood's longest-running on-off-on relationships. Before that she had another five-year romance with British guitarist Bruce Welch of the Shadows.
It says something for my relationship with Lee that we are still together after all these years despite the gossips.
says Newton-John. Marriage is never out of the question, particularly If I was going to want a child. I would never try for children outside marriage, simply because I am old-fashioned.
Newton-John, born in Cambridge. England, left with her parents for Australia when she was 5. She returned to England 11 years later, but her accent retains an unmistakable Aussie twang, just as her manner advertises her conservative upbringing.
I know I appear to be wholesome. and people can't seem to accept it as the truth,
she says almost apologetically. It's just how I was made.
That's why marriage and children are so closely linked in her mind.
Newton-John seems to prefer the silver screen to the concert stage. I never miss not performing in concert.
she insists. I always have a horrible feeling that once I get out onstage I won't know what I'm doing. Yet I felt very comfortable on the film set of Grease and feel now that I have a raw ability that can grow if it is guided in the right direction.
The public and even the critics seem to agree. The New York Times said of her performance in Grease: She is simultaneously very funny and utterly charming as the film's ingenue.
And the icing on the cake is the huge success of You're the One That I Want.
her duet with Travolta from the film. It's one of the biggest record hits of her platinum-plated singing career. After Grease and Saturday Night Fever there is going to be a huge market for such films over the next two years.
she believes. Films are where her future lies, she says, and she's already looking into new film offers.
One thing Newton-John had banned from her future plans was a one-month concert tour of Japan she had planned for October. Her surprise withdrawal from the tour (since rescinded) followed Japan's slaughter of 1500 dolphins which, it was claimed, were eating too many fish and reducing the size of catches and of income for fishermen.
Thank goodness I didn't see any of the pictures on television.
she says, because they would have made me ill.
She insists her reaction was not political. Animals need some kind of protection wherever they are.
The singer appealed to friends in the music industry and asked anyone who planned a tour of Japan to cancel. I have been told that John Denver, Chicago and the Carpenters will get behind me on anything I do on this,
she said. I am hoping that in Japan those who were looking forward to attending my concerts might be so disappointed that they will look at the reasons I cancelled and try to do something about the slaughter of dolphins in their country
.
They did. By press time, representatives of the Japanese government had assured Newton-John they would halt the dolphin slaughter. So her tour is back on.
Shy, prim Olivia Newton-John affecting government policy? The mind boggles. It's a new and determined Newton-John facing the public today.
She's downright fiery. Yes,
she agrees, for anything I believe in.
Perhaps her transformation at the end of Grease is only one of the surprises she has in store. Her cheerleader days may be gone forever.
By Guy Phillips
Photo caption: I've never lived with any man.... I have only had two affairs ever. But I don't suppose you will believe me.