


"I thought it was a great song, but then had a panic attack and called my manager and said, 'You can't put this out, it's too over the top and it's too risque,' " she said, only to learn it had already gone to the radio. The song made her uncomfortable, Newton-John told NPR in 2012. The following year, she earned two Grammys for "I Honestly Love You." Mellow pop songs became Newton-John's stock in trade, but she won her fourth Grammy in 1982 for the suggestive single "Let's Get Physical." A regular on local radio and TV shows, she won a talent contest and ended up recording country-pop songs in the U.S.įor "Let me Be There," she won her first Grammy award in 1973. She grew up in Australia, and started her performing career as a teenager.

A duet with Travolta ended up as a best-selling single. No one, it seemed, could say no to Grease. It worked and when John came to see me at my house - how could you say no to John Travolta?" "And I had all these reasons why I couldn't do it. "I couldn't do an American accent, and I was too old," she told the Today show in 2019. "The perfect Sandy, the ultimate Sandy, would be Olivia Newton-John."īut the 28-year old Australian singer was skeptical about playing a high school student. "I wanted this girl bad," Travolta told Merv Griffin on TV in 1981. He lobbied hard for Newton-John to make her film debut as his costar. In the 1978 movie musical Grease, Newton-John starred as the good girl Sandy Olson, who falls for a bad boy played by John Travolta. "Olivia has been a symbol of triumphs and hope for over 30 years sharing her journey with breast cancer," it reads in part. She died on Monday at her ranch in southern California, according to her husband, John Easterling, in a post on her official Facebook page. Olivia Newton-John, one of the biggest pop stars in the 1970s and early 1980s, has died at the age of 73. Olivia Newton-John arrives for G'Day USA's Los Angeles Black Tie Gala January 27, 2018.
