The Two Faces of Olivia Newton-John
Photocopied article
It would be hard to imagine anyone further removed from the punk rock queen image than pop star Olivia Newton-John. But these days Olivia is playing .the tough lady role, and reveling in it.
In order to keep her man , (John Travolta) in the movie “Grease,” a musical about the leather-jacketed teenage toughs of the ’50s, Olivia has to dress up like a street punk herself. Newton John surprised the entire “Grease” cast recently by turning up in black stretch satin tights, stiletto heels, curly hair teased out like a fright wig and garish red-rimmed sunglasses.
“This side is much more fun than the sweet virginal side,” said the Australian singer, who says she chose the Grease part for her Hollywood movie debut because it gave her the chance to play two types of women.
Now 28, Newton-John says she hopes the Grease role will change the focus of her career to half singing and half movie acting. “It would be the ideal life” she says. Just back in her Malibu ranch-style home from months of touring in the United States and Europe, she says she is beginning to find the concert route wearing. “Once I’m out there on the stage I love it.” she says. “But the actual time spent away gets pretty tiring.”
For “Grease” she found herself thrust into two new careers - acting and dancing. “But they were really just an extension of my singing,” she said in an interview in her air-conditioned trailer on the grounds of a Hollywood high school, where she had spent the morning doing wildly gyrating jitterbug steps alongside Travolta.
“I was nervous about acting for the couple of days.” She soon I got over it. The original “Grease” story has been altered slightly to cast Newton-John as a young visitor from Auatralia, in order to explain her strong Australian accent. She was born in England, brought up in Australia and started her musical career there.
Her family still lives in Melbourne. She has never had any dancing or acting training. “I had a couple of weeks rehearsal tor the film that’s all.”
Newton-John is finding that movie-making imposes a daily discipline just as rigid as that tor singing tours. To get her makeup done and her hair frizzed out for her greaser role, she has to be at the studio by six o’clock. A chauffeur picks her up in early morning darkness for the drive to the studio.
“It’s so early that even the dogs are still asleep,” she says. Newton-John lives alone on the ranch with her horses, cats and dogs, having broken up recently with her boyfriend Lee Kramer, a shoe business executive. She is asked constantly by reporters about a romance with her costar, John Travolta, but she dismisses those reports as nonsense. “I like him and we’re good friends, but that’s all.” she says.
To a question on whether she is planning to marry, she responds with a giggle. “Not this week,” Newton-John has won Grammys and scores of other awards for her songs, which have included a number of country and western mumbers. Her seven albums and l6 singles have sold nearly 25 million copies. Her hits include “Let Me Be There”. “Have You Never Been Mellow” and “If You Love Let Let Me Know.”
Some country and western singers were irked at the idea of a foreigner breaking into their field and making a huge success of it. “But that’s forgotten now” she says. “There were a couple of singers who were a bit jealous. I think they’re grateful now. By broadening the appeal of country music. I opened doors for them.”
Despite the fact that she has concentrated on the prettier rock tunes. she has no dislike for punk rock groups. “I’ve never thought much about it” she says. “I don’t take it seriously I don’t think anybody does, really.”
Los Angeles Times music critic Robert Hilburn put Newton-John along with Briton Peter Frampton at the crest of what he discerned as a whole new wave of “pretty rock”.
But Newton-John doesn’t think she represents a new trend either. “l think there’s room for ail kinds of music here. In America there are openings for everybody. Its the music that counts really”