I always fall flat on my face - Freizeit Revue

Translation from German:

Until recently, she responded to the nickname Livvy with a very annoyed frown. It always stabbed me in the heart when someone called me that. I felt like I wasn't being taken seriously. But since I've been successful, since I've become someone, it doesn't bother me any more. My self-confidence has grown tremendously because of it.

Honest words from a star who has been among the top tier of the American—pardon: international!—show business for some time: the singer and actress Olivia Newton-John. The big turning point finally came in 1978.

Back then, Olivia, the beautiful granddaughter of Nobel Prize winner for physics, Max Born, thoroughly did away with her previous Miss Good Two Shoes image. Alongside teen idol John Travolta, she made the box office ring, men's hearts race, and critics cheer as a hottie in the film musical Grease.

Livvy had made it. ...I was thoroughly fed up with the good songs like If Not For You or Banks Of The Ohio. I wanted to express myself, to affirm myself. Show what I was made of...

Grease. was just a harbinger - now comes Livvy's second (film) trick: Xanadu.

The film's success is guaranteed. A fairy tale for adults, fun for children, the film musical, opening this week in Germany, is supposed to be a dazzling mixture of Grease. and Mary Poppins.

Filmed in the 1940s for the 1980s. Olivia plays the muse Kira, who descends to Earth to grant people's wishes.

With so much success, what's her love situation? Olivia becomes silent. Just a few months ago, her seven-year friendship with her manager Lee Kramer, which began so romantically in Monte Carlo, ended...

We parted as good friends, says the 32-year-old. You can tell she still likes Lee. Before that, Olivia, who now lives in New York, was friends with Shadows guitarist Bruce Welch.

Here's Livvy laughing again... I still remember our first evening. I drank so much champagne that I felt terribly nauseous on the drive home. And that was the end of the evening. But many others followed.

So she hasn't found the man of her dreams yet? When I was at school, the Australian with the British passport tells us, I was once madly in love. But the boy didn't want to know anything about me. After a while, I got over it. Since then, I've always fallen flat on my face with men. But I'm like a jack-in-the-box. And I'm convinced of one thing: One day I, too, will meet the man of my dreams. Our love will last a lifetime.

One wishes the best for Olivia, America's new superstar.