Newton-John Likes 50s Greaser Role
HOLLYWOOD (Reuter) -
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 revelling in it.
In order to keep her man -John Travolta in the musical movie Grease, about the leather-jacketed teen-age toughs of the 50s. she has to dress like a street punk herself.
Newton-John surprised the Grease cast recently by turn ing 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 British-born 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 enable her to have a career which is 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 tours tiring.
“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 her self thrust into two new careers: acting and dancing.
“But they were really just an extension of my singing.” she said.
“I was pretty nervous about acting for the first couple of days.” she says. “Then I got over it.”
The original Grease story has been slightly altered to cast Newton-John as a young visitor from Australia in order to explain her strong Australian accent.
She was brought up in Australia, started her musical career there and her family still lives in Melbourne.
She has never had any dancing or acting training. “I had a couple of weeks rehearsal for the film. that’s all.”
Newton-John is finding that movie-making imposes a daily discipline which is just as rigid as singing tours.
“Its 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 shoebusiness executive.
She is asked constantly by reporters about a romance with her co-star 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.”