by Nathaniel R
Olivia receiving an award in 2019 for her philanthropy. [image via.]
Heaven is one angel stronger today. The iconic 1970s superstar Olivia Newton-John passed away earlier today at age 73 after her fourth bout with cancer. Our thoughts here at The Film Experience go out to her surviving loved ones, husband, siblings, and daughter. More pointedly they go out to her legion of fans since yours truly counts myself among them. If you're in that group, you're surely hurting, too. You see, dear reader, Olivia was my first love. Like everyone who came of age in the 80s, the trio of Grease and Xanadu and "Physical" were impossible to escape. Nor did young Nathaniel want to! I can't remember where I even first learned her name or heard her sing. She was just always part of the world...
In fact, as embarrassing as it is to say, I think Olivia is how I first learned what Australia was! She spoke about Australia often, wearing her nationality with pride, incorporating it into songs, naming her store Koala Blue, and more. My best guess is that my practically-born-into-it Olivia love was handed down from my eldest sibling, my sister (I'm the baby of the family) since she's the filter through which stuff tended to get in before I was fully picking up pop culture on my own.
In addition to being an extremely successful singer, Olivia also leaves a small film legacy behind with one very giant hit within it, but let's talk music first...
THE PEAK OF HER POPULARITY (1977-1983)
Her peak sales years: 1977-1982
Olivia had been a major recording artist all throughout the 1970s within the country music realm. Her biggest selling album of that phase of her career was its closing chapter, "Olivia Newton-John's Greatest Hits Vol I" in 1977. It was Grease a blockbuster at the box office in the summer of 1978 and the swift-on-its-heels "Totally Hot" (her first pop album... though the internet often wrongly claims that to be "Physical" four years later) that marked the crossover moment. 1978 was the superstar ascendance. She followed those three bestsellers up with Xanadu (1980), another hit soundtrack (though the movie flopped) and then her top-selling studio album of all time "Physical" with its iconic Herb Ritts cover and the ubiquitous titular single which becames the biggest single of the 1980s. "Olivia Newton-John's Greatest Hits Vol 2" arrived the following year and also sold millions. It was the second album baby Nathaniel ever bought with his allowance money. And, dear reader, I was utterly bewitched by the foldout cover. Foldout covers are one of the greatest lost-thrills, fandom-wise, from the vinyl years.
Dozen fav Olivia songs for fun
- Make a Move On Me (from "Physical")
- A Little More Love (from "Totally Hot")
- You're the One That I Want (from Grease)
- Xanadu (from Xanadu)
- Hopelessly Devoted to You (from Grease)
- Suspended in Time (from Xanadu)
- Suddenly (from Xanadu)
- Twist of Fate (from Two of a Kind)
- If You Love Me Let Me Know (from "If You Love Me Let Me Know")
- Heart Attack (from "Greatest Hits Vol 2")
- Magic (from Xanadu)
- Please Mister Please (from "Have You Never Been Mellow") give or take dozens of others...
Olivia had one more major hit as her peak popularity was winding down with"Twist of Fate" from her 1983 Christmas release Two of a Kind. The movie flopped at the box office but it delivered her one last top ten hit and another best-selling soundtrack. But Madonna was just around the corner and the Material Girl changed everything (literally) when it came to pop stars. People who didn't live through the 80s will never fully get the seismic impact of her arrival. Suddenly everything that came before was "over" and everyone afterwards, as well as all of her contemporaries, were compared to her, even those with little in common. Olivia's next album "Soul Kiss" subsequently felt dated upon arrival though it was trying to be in the (sexy) moment.
Olivia remained a celebrity for the rest of her life -- you don't have that kind of career and fade into obscurity -- but there were no more hits in the traditional sense. Even "The Rumor", a fun poppy single penned by Elton John in 1988 that sounded exactly like a hit record, failed to become one.
THE MOVIES
Though Olivia was always a singer, first and last, she tried her hand at movie stardom a few times; It's a rite of passage for huge pop-stars. Before she was famous she did two musical roles, one in an Australian special called Funny Things Happen Down Under (1965) and another in a British movie Toomorrow (1970).
Her third acting role was Grease (1978), released just a few months before her 30th birthday, and the movie for which she'll always be remembered. It's not just that it was a phenomenal success (it was one of the biggest hits of the entire decade) but that the role was perfectly catered to her abilities and particulars. Grease was in perfect synergy with that moment in her music career when she was literally pulling off the same arc offscreen, transitioning from an "innocent" angelic singer to a sexy pop star. The movie was a cable and video mainstay of the 80s and my friends and I knew every line of dialogue and could recite them with Olivia's exact inflections all the way from a kind-hearted "fine, thanks" to the manufactured sexiness of the finale "Tell me about it, stud."
Her risky follow up was the disco-rollerskating musical Xanadu (1980), which we've obsessed over before right here. Like Grease it was attempting to be both a music event AND a movie event, but only the former took with the soundtrack, equal parts Olivia and ELO (Electric Light Orchestra, a popular band at the time), being a big success. The movie flopped but it has lived on culturally under the 'bad movies we love' umbrella for so long that it even inspired a successful Broadway spoof in 2007 that was nominated for four Tony Awards in 2008 including Best Actress for the talented Kerry Butler who did a mean and hilarious cartoon take on Olivia's thick Aussie accent while playing a Greek muse.
Of the three movies Olivia made during her superstar years the last is forgotten, the romantic fantasy Two of a Kind (1983). She and John Travolta meet-cute (sort of) during a bank robbery and end up pawns in a battle raging in heaven about whether humanity should be saved or not. The plot is as silly as Xanadu's without the benefit of being outlandishly camp in visual design. Despite reuniting the co-stars of Grease it was not a musial though Travolta and Olivia did duet on the soundtrack for the sappy but extremely enjoyable "Take a Chance".
Two of the Kind was the last of her headlining theatrical features but she did pop up on screens on rare occassions afterwards usually on TV for series guest spots or Christmas movies. She also made two worthwhile LGBTQ indies with large star-studded ensembles. The first was It's My Party (1996), from her Grease director Randall Kleiser, a sentimental but effective AIDS film starring Eric Roberts as a gay man planning suicide but first throwing a big party to say goodbye (which Olivia attends). She's also in the ensemble of the campy Sordid Lives (2000), starring Leslie Jordan, which became a cult hit after its theatrical run and inspired a TV series (in which Olivia reprised her role).
Like all true superstars there was never anyone quite like Olivia Newton-John before her and there never will be again. Her unforgettable combo of angelic voice, heart-lifting smile, Aussie enthusiam, and apple-cheeked beauty with curveball sun-kissed sexiness will be missed.
Looking back at her career has made my chin quiver and eyes well up, as I retreated deep into childhood and teenage memories. We can't live in the past but since lost loved ones lost have to stay there, it's a natural impulse to revisit. Today while saying goodbyes and thank you to Olivia, I'm channeling Kira in Xanadu, hanging on to the memory for as long as possible.
Keep me suspended in time with you
Don't let this moment die
I get a feeling when I'm with you
None of the rules apply
But I know for certain
Goodbye is a crime
So love if you need me
Suspend me in time