Success and the single girl
By Isobel Silden
Olivia Newton-John believes in fantasy. And the fact that her brand-new movie, Xanadu, is a total fantasy strikes Olivia as merely a beautiful coincidence.
“I kind of believe a Xanadu-type fantasy can come true,” she says. “I believe in destiny and fate, and I’m a romanticist. I’d like to believe that it can happen.”
Olivia admits that most of the fantasises she had when she was young have already been fulfiled. She was a mash hit in her first big movie, Grease, with John Travolta. Add to that: 10 gold singles, including her latest, “Magic,” and nine gold albums: $12-million to date as her share from Grease, and an equal amount in recording and concert contracts.
In Xanadu, Olivia, 31, co-stars with Gene Kelly, and the result is $10 million worth of happy singing, dancing and expensively beautiful romping.
Though Olivia tends to “think of the worst that can happen” when it comes to big projects like Xanadu, she claims the is basically a happy person: “Most things make me happy a nice day, good friends, a good meal, music, my animals”
Born in England and raised in Australia, Olivia won a talent contest at the age of 15, for which the prize was a trip to England. She decided to stay to pursue a singing career, and in 1971 released her first single, Bob Dylan’s “IF Not For You.” Her worldwide prominence grew with such songs as “Let Me Be There” and “Have You Never Been Mellow?”
Olivia is a gentle person; yet she has been attacked in the press over the years. One vicious line was, “If white bread could sing it would sound like Olivia Newton-John.”
Doesn’t that hurt her? “Yes, it did initially,” she says, “and I think the more successful one becomes, the more it happens, because makes interesting reading. It used to upset me, but now I know not everyone can like you. People might not like my music, but I don’t have to prove I’m all right because I know I’m all right,” she adds emphatically.
Olivia recently ended a five-year live-in relationship with her manager, Lee Kramer (who was the executive producer of Xanadu), but they remain friends. She refuses to divulge the current status of her love life, though she has been linked with singers Andy Gibb and Cliff Richard.
Her current plans include promoting Xanadu and recording an album, but no concerts because they are very draining for her.
What remains unsaid? “What I would like to see written about me is that I am a normal person. I enjoy what I do. I feel very fortunate. Life as a star doesn’t have to be crazy. It’s really hard work, but I don’t think of it as work. It’s a pleasure.”