Olivia
When she was just sixteen and had won her ticket to England via a talent contest, she admits she was infinitely more concerned with getting back to Australia, boyfriends and dogs than with making a name for herself. And she missed the sun!
Life was not the bowl of cherries it is today. “We were working in dingy clubs not earning much money, living in digs, all that kind of thing.” Olivia kept booking her ticket home; her mother, who was in England with her, kept cancelling it. Olivia stayed on although she wasn’t aware of any burning ambitions. “I wanted to go back and be a housewife or something! I must have had some kind of ambition though, something must have kept me going, but I certainly wasn’t conscious of it then.”
In a relatively short space of time she had made herself at home in a regular slot on that Cliff Richard TV show and had a regular guy Bruce Welch of The Shadows. To this day she’s not quite sure what came first, success or ambition. Maybe it was a little success triggering off a lot of ambition, for somewhere along the line Olivia discovered an untapped source of determination, that her gentle personality belies.
She got the taste for success and eventually decided to plunge in at the deep end the United States. She’d broken up with Bruce by then which should have made it easier: “But I had another boyfriend who didn’t want me to go, which was very hard.” That was her new manager Lee Kramer, “But he ended up coming with me so it worked out. It was just something I knew I had to do.”
She wasn’t disappointed now, in 1979, she’s attracting awards an OBE and gold records on a world scale like a veritable magnet. She’s a superstar alright. Olivia admits she was thrilled when she landed the part of Sandy in Grease - the likes of Marie Osmond were also being considered -and especially thrilled that they had come to her. “I’d seen the stage show in London about six years ago and it was very clear in my mind. I’d had a lot of other things offered but I had an instinct about this, it just felt right.”
Two weeks of rehearsals preceded the filming of the dance numbers. “I was very nervous but the rehearsal period helped because I at least got to know the cast and everybody. John’s a great dancer. I’d been to a few classes to keep fit but I’m not trained in any way, but it wasn’t too much of a struggle for me, in fact I picked it up very quickly. The choreographer was very pleased with me!”
The film-makers were keen to have Olivia, Australian accent and all -they decided that singing, dancing and acting was enough for her to contend with without having to ‘talk American’, so they turned her part into an Aussie girl visiting the U.S. from down under. Now that is accommodating!