Dream Girl of Xanadu
AS THE countdown begins to the world premiere this month of Xanadu, Hollywood is asking the obvious question: Can it equal Grease? To the movie’s star, Olivia Newton-John, it seems an unfair question. How could anyone hope to match the biggest money-making musical in film history? “It’s a very, very big film to follow,” Olivia acknowledges. “To hope it will be anywhere as close in its success may be a bit much. If it’s half as good as Grease or does half as well I’ll be happy. A movie like Grease is a once-in-a-lifetime thing and if I worry about it too much I could drive myself crazy.”
“This is a completely different kind of film. I just had to go into it as a totally different project with no relation at all to Grease.” Olivia waited two years for the right script to follow her smash screen debut. She received dozens of offers for straight roles as well as musicals, but none gave her that instinctive feeling she had when offered Grease. “I read lots of scripts and a few of them I came reasonably close to doing, but none of them seemed quite right, they didn’t gell,” she says. “I was on the brink of taking one when my agent said: ‘This outline just came in and I think it’s perfect for you’. “The script wasn’t even written when I said ‘That’s the one’. “The music hadn’t been set or anything. I really took a gamble, but I believe in the concept so now I just have to hope that my instincts were right because that’s all I was going on.”
Among the projects Olivia rejected was the female lead in Can’t Stop The Music for Grease producer, Allan Carr. Carr began a public feud when Olivia failed to do the movie, accusing her of turning her back on him. Carr and Olivia’s differences were happily resolved when they met on a flight to Australia in May.
For now, Australia’s popular expatriate is focusing on Xanadu, which has its world premiere in America on August 8. Olivia will return home for the movies’ Melbourne and Sydney openings and will also fly to Britain and Europe. Already the title song, sung by Olivia and the Electric Light Orchestra has hit number one in England and another tune from the soundtrack, Magic written by John Farrar, has topped the charts and sold more than a million copies in America.
The Electric Light Orchestra contributed five of Xanadu’s songs and Farrar, who wrote and produced You’re The One That I Want and the Oscar-nominated Hopelessly Devoted To You for Grease, composed the other half. Xanadu grew from an idea to make a 1980 musical fantasy in the tradition of the great MGM musicals.
It revives the excitement of those dance-and-music spectacles, while using modern film and sound techniques to dazzling effect. The dance king of M-G-M musicals, Gene Kelly, was recruited on the understanding that he would not “touch a toe”, or sing. But Kelly had so much fun that he finished choreographing a dance with Olivia and dueting on a John Farrar song, Whenever You’re Away From Me.
The toughest cast decision was a romantic lead. Australia’s Mel Gibson was among those considered briefly before Michael Beck, who had worked for Xanadu producer Lawrence Gordon on The Warriors, was chosen. Olivia plays Kira, one of Zeus’s nine daughters of Greek mythology.
Beck is an artist who paints record covers for billboards and she comes to earth to help his dreams come true. When Beck receives an album cover mysteriously featuring Olivia’s picture, one of those dreams becomes falling in love with her. Beck befriends wise old Gene Kelly on a beach and seeks his advice.
Kelly is a frustrated musician from the 1940s who gave up showbusiness to run a successful family company, and together they agree to pursue their dreams by opening a nightclub called Xanadu. Xanadu’s exciting finale was filmed on a million-dollar oval- shaped set at the Hollywood General Studios.
Olivia tap-dances Betty Grable-style, in a swimsuit, slips into a tigerskin vest and slit-skirt for a hot rock number, hoedowns in a white fringed cowboy outfit, and finishes with a big showgirl number in a glamorous evening gown.
Gene Kelly
GENE KELLY agreed to star in Xanadu his first musical movie in 20 years only if he did not have to sing or dance. But the 67-year-old hoofer enjoyed working with Olivia Newton-John so much he ended up doing both. Kelly choreographed their dance number together the last scene filmed. “It was an incredible experience, something I never dreamt I would do,” Olivia says. “He’s such a professional and knows so much about camera angles and dancing he choreographed and directed that scene himself. He gave me a lot of confidence and I learnt such a lot from him he’s wonderful.”
Audiences have thought the same about Gene Kelly since he first hit Broadway in Cole Porter’s Leave It To Me in 1938. But it was his 1940 smash, Pal Joey, which shot him to Hollywood’s attention. Kelly’s dancing skills helped MGM pay the rent on 28 extravaganzas, starting with For Me And My Gal with Judy Garland. “When we made musicals in those days we really believed in it, we thought it was an art form,” Kelly recalls.
Those who believe Kelly is the greatest of all screen dancers point to his innovations, including dancing with a cartoon figure and dancing in street clothes rather than formal costume. “I liked it because it gave me the chance to do the kind of dancing I wanted to do,” he says. Kelly stepped his way through some of the best musicals in Hollywood history, including possibly the greatest Singin’ In The Rain. “Sometimes the dance numbers are very easily done,” he admits. “For example, in Singin’ In The Rain the song said everything that had to be done.”
In 1952, he was awarded an Oscar in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film. As he grew older, Kelly shunned dancing roles for straight dramatic or comedy parts, including the films The Three Musketeers, Inherit The Wind and The Black Hand. Rita Hayworth, Gloria Dehaven and Kathryn Grayson were among his long list of stunning leading ladies and now there is Olivia. “She’s charming, lovely and a delight to work with,” Kelly says. “But I let the kids do most of the dancing.”
There is a new leading lady in his private life, too. Following the death of his second wife, Jeanne, in 1973, Kelly concentrated on raising his two children, Timothy, l7, and Bridget, 15. But since February, he has been seeing Sandra Bennett, estranged wife of singer Tony Bennett and 27 years Kelly’s junior.