On the big screen, the singer embodied serene wholesomeness with a twist.
Her music career skyrocketed in 1981 with “Physical.”
Grease’s success was bigger than money, though.
Olivia Newton-John in ‘Grease’.Paramount/Rso/Kobal/Shutterstock
Sandy’s no dope.
Newton-John’s shimmering sweetness is key to that stealth-missile charm.
Surely nothing too nasty can be going onhere.
Olivia Newton-John, Gene Kelly, and Michael Beck in ‘Xanadu’.Everett Collection
After all,Sandyis in this movie!
And then the ending features her transformation, with big hair and skintight black clothes.
If this wereReefer Madness, she’d be a fallen woman.
If it wereTaxi Driver, she’d be leaving the squares behind for life in the Big Bad City.
So the movie is a journey from sweet monogamy to sexy monogamy.
Travolta and Newton-John had chemistry, and looked great dancing together.
and a whole trendy thing (skate dancing!).
It seemed to mainly exist as the springboard for “Magic,” a number-one hit for Newton-John.
But by the time I watchedXanadua generation later, you could bask in it with zero irony.
It’s all amazing, and so is she.
Just one year later, in the music video for “Physical,” Newton-John was transformed again.
Short hair, aerobic chic: It was the look.
Is Newton-John playing muse again, making their macho-man dreams come true?
Is she on the hunt herself?
Hopeless devotion suspended in time: That’s the way it should be.
