Would the movie Grease still be a classic without Olivia Newton-John playing the lovable
Sandy?
Well… it nearly happened!
This is the untold truth of Olivia Newton-John.
Olivia Newton-John was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992.
After a period of remission, the star revealed that the cancer had returned in 2017.
Newton-John was very transparent about her breast cancer diagnosis over the years.
It seemed that no matter how difficult the actor's journey became, she never stopped
making an effort to help other cancer patients.
In fact, she started the Olivia Newton-John Foundation with the goal of funding research
for plant medicine as a cancer treatment.
The Grease actor also contributed to the cause by helping to fund a cancer wellness and research
center in Australia.
The facility is now named after the star.
Newton-John appeared to live life to the fullest despite her cancer diagnosis.
In 2020, the "Twist of Fate" singer spoke to The Guardian about how she managed to remain
so optimistic, saying of her diagnosis,
"I don't know what I would be without it now.
I see it as my life's journey.
It gave me purpose and intention and taught me a lot about compassion.
It has been a gift.
I don't wish it on anyone else.
But for me, it's been important in my life."
She also spoke about learning to navigate life day by day, telling the outlet:
"Listen, I think every day is a blessing.
You never know when your time is over; we all have a finite amount of time on this planet,
and we just need to be grateful for that."
Following her long battle with breast cancer, Newton-John died on August 8, 2022.
She was 73.
Olivia Newton-John shared a close bond with her daughter, Chloe Rose Lattanzi, and their
relationship was well documented over the years.
After Newton-John's passing, Lattanzi shared a series of photos to Instagram that proved
she and her mother were inseparable.
The pictures included moments from Lattanzi's childhood as well as her own career in entertainment.
That's right, the actor and musician is following in her famous mother's footsteps.
Lattanzi actually began her acting career alongside Newton-John in the 1994 movie A
Christmas Romance.
Fittingly, Lattanzi played the daughter of her mother's character in the film.
Back in 2000, Newton-John spoke to People about sharing the screen with her young daughter,
telling the outlet:
"It was tough because she was learning this is not a game; it's hard work and the hours
are long."
Newton-John also played an important role in Lattanzi's music career.
The actor collaborated with her daughter on two songs, including "You Have to Believe"
in 2016 and "Window in the Wall" in 2021.
"You Have to Believe" was likely especially sentimental to the mother-daughter duo because
it was a reworked version of Newton-John's song "Magic" from the soundtrack of her movie
Xanadu.
It's hard to imagine that any actor besides Olivia Newton-John could have taken on the
role of Sandy in Grease, but it turns out that the star almost wasn't our Sandy.
The actor revealed that she nearly turned down the role during a 40th-anniversary screening
of Grease hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2018.
Newton-John explained during a Q&A session at the event:
"I really wasn't sure I wanted to do the movie because I'd made a movie before in England,
which was a musical, and it didn't work."
The actor went on to reveal that her co-star and longtime pal, John Travolta, helped convince
her.
Newton-John went on to add:
"Then they sent John to meet me, and who could say no, right?
This gorgeous guy walks up my driveway, these bright blue eyes, and he was so sweet and
melted me and he talked about it."
Newton-John was also fearful to take on the role because of her age, as Sandy, of course,
was only a high school student.
Newton-John told the crowd:
"I said, 'But I'm 29 years old.
How can I be 18?'"
Newton-John went on to add:
"I look back, I can't believe I was thinking that.
But anyway, it's all relative, right girls?"
Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta's chemistry was undeniable, so Grease fans were likely
disappointed to find out that the co-stars' on-camera romance never resulted in a real-life
relationship.
As previously mentioned, the pair were there for each other from the beginning — even
after the camera stopped rolling.
They clearly cared for each other, so why didn't they date?
Newton-John offered an explanation on an episode of Mamamia's "No Filter" podcast decades later:
"We were both with other people when we were filming, and I think, respectfully, we just
didn't happen.
I think it was good, because I think it kept the tension there and the chemistry.
It might have been a real disaster had we decided to date [...] But we're still great
friends."
For his part, Travolta revealed how he felt about his co-star during a joint Q&A in 2019,
where he confirmed that there was in fact sexual tension between him and Newton-John
on set.
So, it sounds like the co-stars just met at the wrong time.
Olivia Newton-John's relationship with ex-boyfriend Patrick McDermott took a bizarre and saddening
twist in June 2005 when McDermott vanished while on a fishing trip with friends.
The couple had been together for nine years and split just before McDermott left for his
trip.
Authorities searched for McDermott along the California coast where he was last seen, but
it was ultimately concluded that he had drowned.
"As you can imagine, it's an incredibly hard thing to go through."
However, this story got even stranger when reports speculated a few years later that
McDermott faked his death to escape debts of over $30,000, which included thousands
in child support payments.
According to a report by the New York Post, private investigators allegedly found McDermott
alive in a small village in Mexico in 2009.
It was even claimed that McDermott sent investigators voice recordings to prove he was alive.
This was allegedly part of an arrangement where investigators agreed to leave McDermott
alone if he confirmed he was still living.
Years after McDermott's disappearance, Newton-John revealed to Australian Women's Weekly magazine
that she was still grieving the loss.
The actress told the outlet:
"I think there will always be a question mark [...] I don't think I will ever really be
at peace with it."
Like many of Hollywood's biggest stars, Olivia Newton-John kicked off her career in entertainment
as a child.
She began exploring her potential to become a musician as a teen, but only after moving
on from her dream of becoming a veterinarian.
The start told Interview magazine in 2011:
"When I was a young girl I was so crazy about animals that I wanted to do something associated
with them, and I thought of being a vet.
But then again, I figured I had to go to medical school and science wasn't a good subject for
me, so I dropped the idea pretty soon [...]"
When the star realized she couldn't be a veterinarian, singing was her next choice.
Newton-John joined a singing group with three other girls at only 14 years old.
Recalling the group in her 2019 book, Don't Stop Believin', Newton-John recalled:
"They were sweet girls who lived to sing (like me), so we started a singing group that we
called the Sol 4.
Our wardrobes consisted of denim jeans, hessian jackets, and black turtlenecks."
After exploring her talents in Sol 4, a 15-year-old Olivia Newton-John tried her luck on a talent
competition show.
This landed her several acting gigs.
Grease ignited Olivia Newton-John's friendship with John Travolta in the '70s, and the pair
remained close through the decades.
In 2019, Travolta spoke to Us Weekly about keeping in touch with his former co-star over
the years:
"We were together not that long ago, about three months ago, and we text each other all
the time.
[...] If I go to see her personally, we usually have dinner and catch up.
And recently we've been talking about trying to do something together."
In 2021, Newton-John gushed to Us Weekly about Travolta's ongoing support.
Calling him "a lovely, sweet man," she explained to the outlet that the Saturday Night Fever
star made sure she was comfortable on the set of Grease — he even purposely ruined
a tape to give her the opportunity to reshoot a scene.
Travolta was one of the many celebrities who shared a tribute following Newton-John's death,
and his message was one of the most touching due to their close bond.
Travolta wrote on Instagram:
"My dearest Olivia, you made all of our lives so much better.
Your impact was incredible.
I love you so much.
We will see you down the road and we will all be together again.
Yours from the first moment I saw you and forever!
Your Danny, your John!"
Olivia Newton-John's music arguably defined the '70s and '80s.
Her many hits earned her four Grammy Awards and 12 nominations, among other accolades.
One of the star's most notable songs, "Physical," dominated the charts for weeks and solidified
her as a pop icon.
But music was more than a cash grab to Newton-John — it was therapeutic for her.
The star told WBTV in 2017:
"I've gone through, as everybody has.
I'm sure everybody watching has gone through loss and grief."
The star went on to add:
"I've always found my way of healing is through music."
This may be the reason why the actor continued to tour and release music up until her last
years.
In 2016, Newton-John released an album to help those experiencing grief, titled Liv
On.
Speaking about the project, on which she collaborated with friends Amy Sky and Beth Nielsen Chapman,
during an interview with Digital Journal, the star said,
"I had lost my sister and I invited them to join me as a trio so that we could write this
album to help people through grief and to live on."
Newton-John went on to share that she was motivated to create the album because of how
healing it would be:
"Music has a way of healing and connecting people and it was a really powerful experience.
I am very excited about this record for the future to help people."