Lady Livia
Olivia Newton-John is our Ivory Girl. With her peachy-creamy skin, big green eyes, and dimpled smile - so dazzling it was surely visible to the folks watching her recent Concert on the Common from the high-rise balconies across the street.
Newton-John is not just beautiful: she’s beatific. My 16-year-old brother, a three-time Grease-er, begged for a chance to ogie Newton-John in the flesh. But at the show, he devoted more drool to the souvenir program’s discreetly suggestive color pictures (Newton-John emerging from the ocean in a dripping white dress, riding horseback in a skimpy tank top and shorts) than to the star herself. In her rhinestone-studded mini-dresses (she made four costume changes) and array of matching suede boots, Newton-John looked more like a new-wave Barbie doll than a blow-up doll.
The genius of her “(Let’s Get) Physical” is that though its bubbly beat and risqué refrain made it a pop natural (10 weeks as Billboard’s number-one single), the kick was hearing wholesome Livy growling lines like “Let’s get animal, an-i-mal” and “There’s nothing left to talk about unless it’s horizontally.” Newton-John has such a fine-tuned perception of her sugary image that she parlays concupiscence into an aerobic orgy.
“Physical” so brilliantly exploits the singer’s fresh-faced appeal that it’s a wonder her producer, John Farrar, didn’t hit upon it sooner in her 10-year career. But then, who but the most imaginative perverts would have harbored salacious thoughts about Newton-John before Grease?
This 1978 movie (the highest-grossing film musical in history) revived her career, which was in a stupor after a steady diet of aural Twinkies like “I Honestly Love You” and “Have You Never Been Mellow.” Grease was the makeover Newton-John needed. The transformation of Sandy from a pony-tailed, level-headed virgin into a frizzy-haired, cigarette-puffing punk was felicitous cultural commentary even without convincing acting.
At the end of the film, when Newton-John dorined her black leather jacket to snag John Travolta, the boys in the audience may have leered, but the girls cheered. What the camera picked up was her delight in abandoning propriety, in kicking up her heels, dressing dirty, and playing the vamp, just for once.
There were more women and girls than men at the Common, for an obvious reason: she’s the girl next door who became a movie star at 29.
Newton-John’s apprehensions about performing in concert are well-founded. Her voice is still feathery (though it’s stronger than earlier in her career), and her phrasing is still tapioca-bland; when she had only her songs to hide behind, it was nap time. But the show s producers discovered an ingenious camouflage.
They created a concert that was more like a television special. As in the Oscar ceremonies, stairs at the left and right of the stage were connected by an elevated runway. The orchestra was a punchy seven-piece outfit led by LA session saxophonist Tom Scott, and Newton-John was cast in a series of production numbers designed for her biggest hits.
After singing the title tune from her flop 1979 musical, Xanadu, she vanished in a puff of smoke. She reappeared in a blinding fuchsia outfit to sing this soundtrack’s other hit. “Magic,” attempting a few saucy hip twirls in response to its slinky beat.
On Grease’s “You’re the One That I Want” (which had the four-year-old child seated in front of me bouncing up and down in his mom’s lap) Newton-John hauled out her trusty black leather jacket for a peppy re-enactment of the movie’s carnival scene, with backup singer Dennis Tufano standing in for Travolta.
By Joyce Millman