Olivia What Makes Her So Special?
She’s 28, blonde, with big blue saucer eyes and a contagious toothy grin. Her face and figure are enough to make fashion models envious, but she’s earning her living from records and concerts, not posing for magazines (although she’s in demand for fashion spreads, too)!
Since 1973, with the success of “Let Me Be There,” Olivia has been racking up one award after another. She’s sold more than 10-million albums worldwide. One of the few artists able to cross over from country to pop charts, she has five gold singles, six gold and three platinum LPS. Three of her albums and singles reached number one on all the charts. The list of awards she’s won fill a whole page on her bio!
Her latest Lp “ONJ GREATEST HITS” has resulted in the re-release of her popular “I Honestly Love You”.
She has played before audiences all over the world from country fairs to the Queen of England to New York’s Metropolitan Opera House, yet she’s still reaching for something more.
Olivia has been interested in acting for some time and has been eagerly searching for a vehicle to make her film debut for years. Finally, she signed on to co-star with John Travolta in Grease, a 50’s musical.
“I had two previous offers to do films but they didn’t feel right and the scripts had too much violence in them,” Olivia says. “Also, neither of them were musicals. Music is my ideal introduction - the only thing I have to go on. Now if people don’t like my singing. I hope they’ll like my acting.”
Many people have high hopes for Olivia’s acting career and some have said she could easily become another Doris Day or Julie Andrews.
“That would be great”, Olivia says enthusiastically.
She plays a “Goody Two Shoes” type in Grease who eventually winds up “outgreasing” Travolta. The chance to get away from her squeaky clean image was a big reason Olivia wanted to do the movie.
“I’m usually very virginal,” she says. “but it’s fun to be different, too. This clean image is nothing I’ve cultivated. I do everything that normal people do. I’m surel have some vices but I don’t go around pointing them out. Why point out a pimple on your nose?”
Although Olivia jokes that “I’m terrible underneath, honestly!,” the only thing she’s been criticized for is “being too nice”.
“People don’t want to hear that you’re nice”, says Olivia. “But that’s what I am. In fact, I’m pretty boring. I’m a normal person, I guess. I don’t take drugs and I don’t get into any thing strange. Up to now there haven’t been any love scandals”.
What she’s referring to are the rumors that her onscreen romance with Travolta has continued offscreen. Both John and Olivia deny the rumors of romance but claim to be good friends.
“We got on fantastically,” Olivia says of John. “We’d deliberately planned on being friends, but somehow it happened automatically. I invited him to my ranch to go horse-back riding to wind down and relax. John loved my animals. He’s going to go on to super stardom.”
When she’s not working. Olivia is happiest at her Malibu ranch relaxing with her two cats, five horses and four dogs. She’s a passionate animal lover and says if she hadn’t gotten into show business she would have been a veterinarian. Even now she lends her support to animal protection projects.
There has been a special man in her life for five years, her manager, Lee Kramer, but lately their relationship has been off and on.
“It’s very difficult to have a relationship,” she admits. “A lot of men are frightened by my success and by what I represent”.
Friends, fans and boyfriends alike all agree on one thing… there is something special about Olivia. Her hair, her eyes, her voice, her personality - all combine into one irresistible bundle of dynamite!