The Magic Of Xanadu
If Grease made Olivia Newton-John a star, then Xanadu looks set to make her a superstar. Born in Cambridge but raised in Melbourne, Australia, Olivia took great interest in singing and dancing from a very early age. Although a group, she formed with three girlfriends, called The Sol Four, had to disbanded when it began to interfere with school work, Olivia was already convinced that her future lay in the world of entertainment. Even so, it must have come as quite a shock , to her academic family (her grandfather was a Nobel prize winner, and her father head- master of Ormond College in Melbourne) when she decided to pursue her music career full-time rather than go to college. Winning her first talent contest at 15, Olivia was awarded a trip to England, and for the next two years stayed here, successfully performing as part of a duo with another Australian girl, Pat Carroll. Things could have worked out very differently had Pat’s visa not expired, forcing her to return to Australia. For Olivia stayed in England alone, turned solo and recorded her first single (Bob Dylan’s tune If Not For You). The record was a hit and suddenly everyone wanted to know who she was.
Her next single, Banks Of The Ohio, won her an English Silver Disc and an Australian Gold Disc, while at the same time she was charming audiences throughout Europe while touring with the Cliff Richard Show. She then became a regular guest on the BBC TU series, It’s Cliff Richard, and continued to collect music awards. In 1971 and 197.2, she was voted the Best British Girl Singer by the readers of a top weekly pop newspaper. Olivia’s world-wide acclaim continued to grow in 1973 with her first Grammy as Best Country Vocalist for the song Let Me Be There. Since then, her list of awards has multiplied each year, with two more Grammys in 1974, a total of eight American Music Awards since 1973, and honours from all corners of the globe too many, in fact, to mention here.
However, Olivia has managed to keep a steady balance in her life. She has settled in Malibu, California, where she can relax with her two cats, four dogs and six horses, because next to her love for music is her interest in, and love of, animals. As a child, she once thought of becoming a vet, such was her devotion to animals, and one of her greatest priorities today is her involvement with animal care and preservation of endangered species. To protest against the killing of dolphins by Japanese fishermen, Olivia cancelled a Japanese concert tour and did not, re-schedule it until the government had assured her that steps were being taken to rectify the situation. It’s been a hectic few years for Olivia since she began filming her first major movie, Grease, co-starring with John Travolta. The most successful musical film ever made, Grease has broken box office records all over the world. Olivia earned rave reviews from even the toughest film critics, who described her debut as “very funny and utterly charming.”
However, Grease’s successes have not been limited to the film world - the soundtrack album was at the top of the charts for months and awarded multi-platinum honours. Olivia’s three releases You’re the One That I Want, Summer Nights, Hopelessly Devoted To You, went gold and remained in the pop charts throughout 1978. They were just as successful around the world too, topping most of the international charts After Grease, it took Olivia almost two years to find another film script that captured her imagination, although new projects were presented to her almost daily. She read Xanadu and immediately liked the story instinctively, she chose it from all of other stories because she believed it’d make a marvellously entertaining film Olivia, though, was still a little worried about Xanadu, explaining ‘In my first movie people weren’t expee1etg anything from me. For the second they’re expecting a lot.”
Just think, though: at one time it was touch whether this money-spinning movie would ever get into production. Explains producer Lawrence Gordon: “Co-producer Joel Silver and myself had the idea to make a real old-fashioned musical. We developed the story for Warner Brothers who declined to go ahead. Maybe they were right to do so. A musical fantasy is chancy, and at the time we didn’t have Olivia or Gene (co-star Gene Kelly). Joel and I still believed in the project, so we took it to Universal and they decided to do the film.”
GENE KELLY
Co-starring with Olivia and Michael Beck (who plays her star-crossed lover Sonny) is, of course, Gene Kelly (one of the greatest dancers in the history of the movies) who readily admits that the film needed a star of Olivia’s stature, explaining: “Foreign movie sales are more difficult unless you get someone who’s a huge record seller, like Olivia. I don’t think they could’ve attempted this movie without her.” In fact the film could have been specially designed for Livvy, with John Farrar who has produced her albums and written most of her songs over the last nine years writing much of the film’s musical score Already, as you will know, the film’s title song, recorded by Livvy and the Electric Light Orchestra, has topped the charts with the soundtrack album completing a No 1 double.
When Gene agreed to be in the film, he told Gordon he wouldn’t ‘touch a toe’. He would strictly be a dramatic actor, Fortunately, it was possible to persuade the fabulous Kelly to dance in several of the production numbers, one of which was the colourful scene staged at Fiorucci’s fashion store in Beverley Hills, with Gene dancing his way through more than half a dozen costume changes.
“The man is not just an actor and dancer,” says director Robert Greenwald, “he’s also a producer, director, choreographer, and writer. It’s not only a challenge to direct him on my first picture it would be the same on my fiftieth!” With Olivia and Gene signed to star in Xanadu there remained just one major role to cast, that of the romantic: lead opposite Olivia. Lots of names came up, but the one everyone kept coming back to was Michael Beck, who had starred in the X-rated movie The Warrior It was felt by everyone involved, that the chemistry between him and Olivia would be very exciting, And how right they were!