Past Perfect: Olivia Newton-John

With her amazing blue eyes, perfect blonde hair, sweet smile and perky breasts, every male teenager in the world wished that Sandy Olsson was an exchange student at their school when Grease came out in 1978.
By Kate Hutchinson

Played by British-born, Australia-raised Olivia Newton-John, cute Sandy appeared to be an innocent girl-next-door, a cheerleader who sang sweet songs to Danny Zuko (John Travolta), but she could also be a cigarette-smoking bad girl. Literally sewn into her Lycra pants for the film’s finale, Sandy became the seductive hottie our mums didn’t want us to date. Even Hollywood stood up and took notice, nominating Olivia for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical.

Next came Xanadu (1980), another musical romance, but the movie was a flop. Olivia plays Kira, a muse who visits Earth to help inspire men to pursue their dreams and desires. A tad ridiculous, except for Kira being so damn hot—and she can sing. Olivia was nominated for a Grammy for the tune ‘Magic’, from the double-platinum Xanadu soundtrack. Olivia’s forte was originally country music.

At just 23, the wholesome honey had her first international hit with a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘If Not for You’, and she was crowned the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 1974, allegedly to the disgust of pollsters’ favourite Dolly Parton.

But just like in Grease, where Sandy went from good girl to naughty nymph, so did Olivia’s music (and her outfits). Faster than you could say ‘Greased Lightning’, Olivia stopped singing sweet ballads in floral dresses in favour of leather, leather and more leather. The title of her 1978 album was Totally Hot, and she was just that. With hit singles such as the upbeat ‘A Little More Love’, an all-grown-up Olivia wore heavy make-up and a man’s shirt and tie, trading in her innocent appeal for rebellious raunchiness.

Yet we’d seen nothing yet. In 1981, Olivia released her most successful studio record, Physical. With awesomely suggestive lyrics such as: “There’s nothing left to talk about/Unless it’s horizontally”, the title track was banned in South Africa, but America loved the new Olivia and the album sold more than two million copies, going double platinum.

More surprising (and arousing) was the music video for Physical. With her super-sexy smirk and toned body, the Aussie star jumped back into Lycra to conduct a sweaty aerobics workout, inspiring a whole generation of blokes to ‘get physical’ with themselves. The video proved so popular that it won the 1983 Grammy for Video of the Year.

Following a battle with breast cancer in the early ’90s, Olivia was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2002. Unfortunately, the beauty has been far less successful in love. Her 1984 marriage to actor Matt Lattanzi (an extra in Xanadu) ended in divorce in 1995. She then dated cameraman Patrick McDermott until 2005, when he mysteriously vanished during a fishing trip off the coast of California. In June 2008, the MILF secretly wed ‘Amazon John’ Easterling, the founder of a herbal remedy company. But Olivia will always be Sandy to us, and we, as always, remain hopelessly devoted to her.