Ancient Grease

thanks to Kay

Curled up on a couch in her Rihga Royal Hotel suite, with a TV on in the background, Olivia Newton-John seems more than a little out of sorts. Her comment on Paramount’s upcoming re-release of Grease is a bit loopy, for instance: This 20-year anniversary isn’t just some overnight thing, she proclaims. And though her voice fueled such synthesized 8Os hits as Xanadu and Twist of Fate, she has difficulty pronouncing synthesizer (“synth. . .synth. Whatever is all she can muster). She seems especially lost when the subject of two-time co star John Travolta comes up. I went to see him in that new movie Wag the Dog, she says with a bright smile. He was great in it. Um, doesn’t she mean Mad City?

Well, maybe it's jet lag Newton John has just flown all the way from her native Australia, and she’s tired. In fact, she breaks into several big yawns during our visit. Still, she’s looking ultra fetching in a clingy brown-and beige ensemble—— and it’s a surprise to learn that she’s eagerly awaiting her 50th birthday this summer.

I’m less of a Pollyanna and more realistic about things now, says Newton-John, who successfully battled breast cancer in the early 90s. I’m just grateful for getting older, instead of dreading it.

She’s certainly keeping busy. In addition to her duties as the national spokesperson for the Children’s Health and Environmental Coalition (a parental watchdog group), she’s putting the finishing touches on a Nashville-recorded album, Back with a Heart, which will include a duet with Babyface on a new version of her 1974 schmaltz classic I Honestly Love You.

This month, however, all her energies are focused on the re-release of Grease, the most successful movie musical of all time. Since its release in 1978, the film has grossed more than $300 million worldwide, and its soundtrack has sold more than 20 million copies. Although Grease producer Allan Carr——who n also take credit (or blame) for Can't Stop the Music — has been urging Paramount to get the m back in theaters for years, the studio wasn't convinced until midnight screenings of the musical became hugely popular in L.A. Carr went to a screening once, along with Newton-John, who snuck in the back with director Randal Kleiser and Didi Conn (forever known as Frenchy, the beauty-school dropout). What they saw were boys in leather jackets doing their best T Birds impressions and girls in tight angora sweaters pretending to be Pink Ladies—all singing along to the movie and doing the hand-jive.

It was a riot, says Newton-John. All these kids were so into it. They’ve all seen it a hundred times. It’s just got this timeless quality to it. The show did before, and the film took it one step further.

Grease gave a considerable boost to Newton-John’s career. Having made her name with country-lite hits like 1973’s Have You Never Been Mellow, Newton-John was as squeaky clean as pop stars came in the ’70s (Americas sweetheart, even though she’s from Australia, as Kleiser puts it). So it was a bit of a shock to see her stub out a cigarette with one of her red pumps and coo Tell me about it, stud in Grease's last scene.

She surprised us, recalls Carr. As he tells it, the crew was preparing to shoot Travolta’s drive-in scene when an assistant told Carr he needed to come to Newton-John’s trailer. When he got there, the door opened, and a tarted-up Newton-John emerged. Olivia walked down those stairs, and we all went crazy, he says. We had no idea she could look like that.

Grease allowed Newton-John to ditch her clean-cut image and get a little more edgy with my music, she says. In 1981, she released Physical, a song about sex on the first date. Just before the single came out, she had second thoughts. It was okay in Grease, because I was playing a part, she says. But when it came to Physical, I remember calling my manager and going, I can’t do this. I’m scared that it’s going too far this time. Maybe we better pull out.

Needless to say, she didn’t, and in addition to igniting the aerobics phenomenon, Physical became the biggest- selling single of the ’80s. It was even banned in Utah. That’s the only time I’ve been banned, she says gleefully. I’m quite proud of it, actually.

Now that she has a 12-year-old daughter (by ex-husband Matt Lattanzi), Newton-John is more aware of the messages children pick up from music and the media—like Greases implication that girls can win their boyfriends’ hearts by wearing tight black pants and smoking.

I’ve thought about it now that I’m a mother, but it never occurred to me at the time, she says. Later on, I thought, God this is not a good message really—at that age it’s all about giving in. And the smoking thing is dreadful, even though she does take one puff, cough and put it out. But the interesting thing is that Danny lettered in track for Sandy. He has the cardigan on, and she changes for him. They just want to be together. And hopefully, that’s what kids get out of it.

Grease opens Friday.

Grease Opinion

Tell me about it, stuuud. . . the goddess purrs, pushing her spike heel into the chest of her love slave, who is groveling prostrate at her feet. Appearances aside, this is not Venus in Furs but a frothy little confection called Grease. In this pivotal scene, our heroine Sandy, having abandoned her crinolines for leather, Lycra and Candies (the shoes, that is), has entered that time-honored pantheon of good girls gone bad, much to the delight of the audience.

Sitting in the theater 20 years ago, I knew she had it in her, because I’d already seen the movie five times (doing my part to make Randall Kleiser’s first feature the top- grossing film of 1978). Every time that funky disco- lite title track kicked in, I felt an indescribable thrill, knowing I Was about to be Whirled into a fantasy of teenage life and happy endings. As movies go, Grease is a terrific spectacle: great costumes, music, dancing. But for me and my friends, on the brink of puberty and trying mightily to understand concepts like French-kissing, this was more than a movie——it was an instruction manual.

I remember watching in awe as the Pink Ladies strutted onto campus, declaring, We’re gonna rule the school. So cool. . .so mature! Of course, I had no way of knowing that Stockard Channing was 34 at the time; I just knew I had a lot of growing up to do. Particularly if I wanted to ever have a boyfriend like thump thump Danny Zuko. And who didn’t?

From the first instant John Travolta appears on the screen, there is no doubt that he is the shit. He’s just hangin’, chatting up some babe, when all his dorky T-Bird friends run over, tripping over themselves to hear about his summer sexcapades. Well, he confides, I met this chick at the beach.

And so begins the web of lies in this Romeo and Juliet—meets—Cinderella sock-hop extravaganza. Because, of course, the chick at the beach is none other than uber prude Sandy Olsen, played by the perfectly cast Olivia Newton-John. Sandy’s initial response when Danny tries to slip her the tongue may be to push him away, crying, Don’t spoil it! but we know they’re in love, because Love Is a Many Splendored Thing is playing.

Stockard Channing’s promiscuous Rizzo is, of course, Sandy’s antithesis. That point is driven home by the animated title sequence, in which little bluebirds carry Sandy her dressing gown, a la Snow White, while Rizzo, who has a James Dean poster on her wall, is shown in a bra. Just as girls today line up behind Scary Spice or Baby Spice, 20 years ago there were Sandy girls and there were Rizzo girls. I was a die-hard Sandy girl, but watching the film with two decades of hindsight, it’s obvious that Rizzo is a more appropriate role model. Unapologetically following her desires (often into the back seats of cars), she states, There are worse things I could do. Now there’s a woman with real integrity.

Meanwhile, Sandy gets dissed at the pep rally, dumped at the dance and repeatedly lied to and about. Then comes the drive-in sequence. Danny asks her to go steady, convincing her at last that he really respects her. When he tries to cop a feel, she storms out of his sin wagon, and instead of figuring out that he just isn’t her type of guy — Sandy decides it’s she who needs to change. The audience agrees, of course, because, well, he’s John Travolta! Besides, as Danny tells Sandy, he has an image to uphold. After we’ve glimpsed the wounded little boy behind his tough exterior, it’s almost impossible not to sympathize with him.

Danny proves his devotion by earning a varsity letter in track, but that sweater comes off faster than greased lightnin’ when the newly minted black-clad Sandy shows up. So complete is her transformation that the former priss bomb positively beams when Danny grabs her ass. The implication is that this is the real Sandy (and maybe the real Olivia as well: Newton-John wears practically the same outfit on the cover of her 1979 album, Totally Hot). But for me, at age 11, the obvious lesson was Do whatever you must to get your man.

It took me some time to realize that this approach to life is simply unacceptable, and I’m only now able to recognize the emotional vacancy that often lies behind those little-boy eyes. But I must admit, I’m still a sucker for guys in pink socks.

By Steffie Nelson

Grease opens Friday; see Index for venues.