Olivia Newton-John passes away at age 73

[HWBL]

She battled cancer for decades.

This is from February this year:

[mrsfawlty]

An utterly adorable lady, gone too soon. I didn't think I would be this sad. I've never even seen Grease but she was always there....you know, one of those people who were inoffensive, nice and made life a really warm and fuzzy place to exist!
*got the sads*

[Sarzy]

Very sad news! That was such a long time she had cancer for. Rest in peace, Olivia

[waterslide]

She was one of my favorites when I was 3. Especially "Please Mister Please". She really did have an angelic voice. She was quite the survivor though, because she's been through it with the health issues.  RIP, Ms Newton-John.

Olivia Newton-John, Pop Singer and ‘Grease’ Star, Dies at 73

She began her career as an innocent purveyor of middle-of-the-road pop but later adopted a bad-girl person


Olivia Newton-John starring as Sandy in the 1978 hit movie “Grease.” She was a four-time Grammy winner, beguiling listeners with a high, supple, vibrato-warmed voice.Credit...CBS via Getty Images
By Jim Farber
Aug. 8, 2022
Updated 5:00 p.m. ET

Olivia Newton-John, who sang some of the biggest hits of the 1970s and ’80s while recasting her image as the virginal girl next door into a spandex-clad vixen — a transformation reflected in miniature by her starring role in “Grease,” one of the most popular movie musicals of its era — died on Monday at her ranch in Southern California. She was 73.

The death was announced by her husband, John Easterling. She had lived with a breast cancer diagnosis since 1992 and in 2017 announced that the cancer had returned and spread. For years she was a prominent advocate for cancer research and had started a foundation in her name to support it.

Ms. Newton-John amassed No. 1 hits, chart-topping albums and four records that sold more than two million copies each. More than anything else, she was likable, even beloved.




Ms. Newton-John and John Travolta in a scene from “Grease.” It became one of the highest grossing movie musicals ever, besting even “The Sound of Music.”Credit...Paramount/Library of Congress, via Associated Press

In the earlier phase of her career, this English-Australian singer beguiled listeners with a high, supple, vibrato-warmed voice that paired amiably with the kind of swooning middle-of-the-road pop that, in the mid-1970s, often passed for country music.

Her performance on the charts made that blurring clear. She scored seven Top 10 hits on Billboard’s Country chart, two of which became back-to-back overall No. 1 hits in 1974 and ’75. First came “I Honestly Love You,” an earnest declaration co-written by Peter Allen and Jeff Barry, followed by “Have You Never Been Mellow,” a feather of a song written by the producer of many of her biggest albums, John Farrar.

“I Honestly Love You” also won two of the singer’s four Grammys, for record of the year and best female pop vocal performance.

The combination of Ms. Newton-John’s consistently benign music — she was never a favorite of critics — and comely but squeaky-clean image caused many writers to compare her to earlier blond ingénues like Doris Day and Sandra Dee. “Innocent, I’m not,” Ms. Newton-John told Rolling Stone in 1978. “People still seem to see me as the girl next door. Doris Day had four husbands,” she said, yet she was still viewed as “the virgin.”

An entry into movies in 1978 aimed to put the singer’s chaste image behind her, starting with “Grease.” Her character, Sandy, transformed from a pigtailed square smitten with John Travolta’s bad-boy Danny to a gum-smacking bad girl. “Grease” became one of the highest grossing movie musicals ever, besting even “The Sound of Music.” Its soundtrack was the second best-selling album of the year, beaten only by the soundtrack for “Saturday Night Fever,” which also starred Mr. Travolta.

The “Grease” soundtrack spawned two No. 1 hits, both sung by the co-stars, including the manically lusty “You’re the One That I Want” and the doo-wop romp “Summer Nights.” A ballad Ms. Newton-John sang alone, “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” earned the film’s lone Oscar nomination, for best song.

Applying the evolution of her “Grease” character to her singing career, Ms. Newton-John titled her next album “Totally Hot,” and presented herself on the cover in shoulder-to-toe leather. The album, released at the end of 1978, went platinum, yielding the rock-oriented “A Little More Love” with the line, “Where did my innocence go?”

Ms. Newton-John in an undated photo. In the 1980s she sought to shed her innocent image, emerging with “Physical,” which spent 10 weeks at No. 1 in Billboard’s rankings.

The album featured Ms. Newton-John singing in a somewhat more forceful voice. Though her sales dipped as the 1970s turned into the ’80s, by early in the decade she began the most commercially potent period in her career, peaking with the single “Physical,” which spent 10 weeks on Billboard’s top perch. Later, the magazine declared it to be the biggest song of the 1980s.

Olivia Newton-John was born on Sept. 26, 1948, in Cambridge, England, the youngest of three children of Brinley and Irene (Born) Newton-John. Her mother was the daughter of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born. Her Welsh-born father had been an MI5 intelligence officer during World War II and afterward served as headmaster at Cambridgeshire High School for Boys.

When Ms. Newton-John was 6, her family immigrated to Melbourne, Australia, where her father worked as a college professor and administrator. At 14, she formed her first group, Sol Four, with three girls from school. Her beauty and confidence soon earned her solo performances on local radio and TV shows under the name “Lovely Livvy.” On “The Go!! Show” she met the singer Pat Carroll, with whom she would form a duet, as well as her eventual producer, Mr. Farrar, who later married Ms. Carroll.

Ms. Newton-John won a local TV talent contest whose prize was a trip to Britain. While tarrying there, she recorded her first single, “’Til You Say You’ll Be Mine,” which Decca Records released in 1966.

After Ms. Carroll moved to London, she and Ms. Newton-John formed the duet Pat and Olivia, which toured Europe. When Ms. Carroll’s visa expired, forcing her to go back to Australia, Ms. Newton-John stayed in London to work solo.

In 1970, she was asked to join a crudely manufactured group named Toomorrow, formed by the American producer Don Kirshner in an attempt to repeat his earlier success with the Monkees. Following his grand design, the group starred in a science-fiction film written for them and recorded its soundtrack. Both projects tanked.



Ms. Newton-John tried to expand her acting career with the 1980 musical “Xanadu,” here in a scene with the actor Michael Beck. Its soundtrack went double platinum.Credit...Universal/Kobal, via Shutterstock

“It was terrible, and I was terrible in it,” she later told The New York Times.

Her debut solo album, “If Not for You,” was released in 1971, its title track a cover of a Bob Dylan song.

After some duds in the United States, Ms. Newton-John released the album “Let Me Be There” (1973), which led to a Grammy win for best female country vocal performance.

Two key changes in pop music boosted her career that decade: the rise of “soft rock” in reaction to the harder genres of the late 1960s, and the mainstreaming — some would say the neutering — of country music, also epitomized by stars like John Denver and Anne Murray.

The latter trend became an issue in 1974, after Ms. Newton-John was chosen female vocalist of the year by the Country Music Association over more traditional stars like Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton. Protests led to the formation of the fleeting Association of Country Entertainers. Yet, after Ms. Newton-John recorded her “Don’t Stop Believin’,” album in Nashville in 1976, the friction eased.

The second phase of her career, which began with “Grease,” found further success through a duet with Andy Gibb, “I Can’t Help It,” followed by an attempt to expand her acting career with the 1980 musical film “Xanadu,” with Gene Kelly. While the movie floundered, its soundtrack went double-platinum, boasting hits like “Magic” (which commanded Billboard’s No. 1 spot for four weeks) and the title song, recorded with the Electric Light Orchestra.

A campy Broadway show based on the film opened in 2007 to some success.


Ms. Newton-John performing in Chile in 2017, the year she said her cancer had returned and had metastasized.Credit...Mario Ruiz/EPA, via Shutterstock

Ms. Newton-John’s smash “Physical” also yielded the first video album to hit the market, with clips for all the album’s tracks. “Olivia Physical” won the Grammy in 1982 for video of the year.

She was paired again with Mr. Travolta in the 1983 movie “Two of a Kind,” an attempt to repeat the success of “Grease.” But the film disappointed even as its soundtrack proved popular, especially the song “Twist of Fate.”

Ms. Newton-John was named an officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1979.

By the mid-’80s, her career had cooled. For several years she cut back on work to care for her daughter, Chloe Rose, whom she had with her husband at the time, the actor Matt Lattanzi; they had met on the set of “Xanadu” and married in 1984. They divorced in 1995. She married Mr. Easterling, the founder of the Amazon Herb Company, in 2008

In addition to her husband, she is survived by her daughter, Chloe Rose Lattanzi; her sister, Sarah Newton-John; and her brother, Toby.

After learning she had breast cancer in 1992, Ms. Newton-John became an ardent advocate for research into the disease. Her Olivia Newton-John Foundation Fund is dedicated to researching plant-based treatments for cancer. Despite her own treatments, she continued to release albums and tour but failed to make headway on the charts. She also acted in movies and on television.

In May 2017, she disclosed that her cancer had returned and that it had metastasized to her lower back. She published a memoir, “Don’t Stop Believin,’” in 2018.

To the end Ms. Newton-John firmly believed in her audience-friendly approach to music. “It annoys me when people think because it’s commercial, it’s bad,” she told Rolling Stone. “It’s completely opposite. If people like it, that’s what it’s supposed to be.”

New York Times

And we'll always have @burnt_toast 's avatar from the unforgettable holiday classic film This Christmas.  I never watched it, but it always makes me laugh when I think of the trailer.  

[coppercatseye]

RIP Olivia! She was a sweet lady.

[waterslide]

This is a 1970s pop extravaganza. Olivia, Andy Gibbs, and ABBA all on one stage.  

[louiswinthorpe111]

OMG, I had huge crushes on both Andy and Olivia. I adored her. And my boys were toddlers, their favorite song was Dancing Queen. What a great video.

[panic]

lol @ that pic of Olivia and John Travolta dancing in Grease. I did love that movie and her in it. RIP Olivia.

[tulip]

I am so sad. I LOVED Olivia when I was young. I used to sing into my jumprope "microphone" to her records. She had such a great voice. She was so strong through her cancer battle.

RIP ONJ

[notoriousmkg]

I really liked her. Her music is kind of part of the background music of the lives of a lot of people who grew up in the 70's and 80's. Songs like "Sam", "Hopelessly Devoted to You", "Have You Never Been Mellow", "Physical", "You're the One that I want."

I was telling Mrs Mo and our daughter that when I worked in a video store in the late 80's, we would usually have movies playing in the store that were picked out by the employees. The women almost invariably played either "Grease" or "Princess Bride".

With regard to breast cancer, I remember being in grade school, and there was this adorable, kind of prissy girl who used to sit behind me. She looked like a mini Olivia Newton-John. Somehow it came out in class that her mom had breast cancer (would have been in her late 30's at the time) and her grandmother had died of it. It was really the first time I had even heard of breast cancer (2nd grade), but it sounded like something that every woman in her family was going to get, including her. I still wonder if she beat the odds.

This was always one of my favorite ONJ songs - kind of obscure ("Make a Move on Me").  Same album as "Physical":

[louiswinthorpe111]

^^Of course you didn't. You like brunettes!! lol

This is funny, I also worked in a video store in the late 80's early 90's.  Best high school job ever!

We always ran whatever was the new Disney animation movie.  I can seriously recite the Little Mermaid word for word.

[notoriousmkg]

^^^ I did love working there. It was my last part-time job before I graduated from college and got a real-world job. I was surrounded by cute coworkers. Some of whom I dated. You were actually encouraged to go out and talk to customers to help them find a movie to watch. And I dated some of them, too. Also, you were allowed to rent up to 4 movies a night for free. Amazing times.

[trixie]

She was never my cup of tea, but seemed like a nice woman and she went through so much with her cancer battle. It said she was married, anyone remember several years ago she had a husband or boyfriend who was presumed dead then showed up somewhere? Something shady. Also wonder about her weird daughter, if she inherits all Olivia's money she'll probably spend it on plastic surgery.

Mo, my ex-boss's wife was in a family like that, all the females ended up with breast cancer going back to her grandmother. She would get mammograms every six months and still developed cancer. She ended up getting a double masectomy but it killed her anyway. She and the ex-boss are both deceased now but they had a daughter and I sometimes wonder about her.

[greysfang]

Other than the entire Grease soundtrack, this was my favorite song.

[notoriousmkg]

Greys, I love that song, too.

Trixie, I had this fiery coworker about 20 or so years ago. She was a legend because of how smart she was and how much money she pulled in for the company. She was a network integration engineer. She also had a huge collection of Nerf weaponry mounted in her cubicle - that people would grab to start random wars with each other. Anyway, for some reason, she married a real simpleton of a dude and had two daughters by him. Then, she realized what a knucklehead he was, divorced him, and (in violation of the custody agreement) he disappeared with the daughters and she had people looking all over for him. About a year after she got them back, she developed breast cancer - at the age of 36. She fought it like hell, tried every experimental treatment, and blogged about it regularly. It was agonizing to read someone fight this in real time. Eventually, it went to her brain, and while she was walking through a Best Buy with her boyfriend and daughters she suddenly lost the ability to speak. Just like that. As things got worse, all of us coworkers (and other friends) took turns bringing food to her house and saying what she meant to us. Almost like in shifts. It was a crazy time, and during her funeral service, all of us (late 30's/early 40's) were looking at each other, realizing our mortality for the first time. It reminded me a little of the funeral scene for Anthony Edwards' character in "ER".