By Nora Krug Nora Krug Staff editor for Book World with a focus on children's books, memoirs, fiction, parenting, health and fitness Email Bio Follow March 20 at 11:01 AM Forty years ago, Olivia Newton-John launched a million dreams — and, later, feminist backlash — when she stepped onto a high-school field in a pair of skintight black pants, puffing a cigarette, her hair tarted up in curls.
Anyone who has been through a supermarket checkout over the last few decades can probably understand why Newton-John might be concerned. Since she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, the singer-actress has been a tabloid target, her health the subject of wild speculation. When cancer returned in 2013, to her sacrum, the singer-actress was able to keep it mostly under wraps.
In conversation Newton-John is animated and sharp. “That’s all in my book!” she points out when asked whether it’s true that she almost turned down the Sandy role because she thought that at 29 she was too old to play a high-school student. She did equivocate on taking the part, she confirms nonetheless: “I was very nervous about pulling it off. When I look at it now I think I was nuts. But when you’re really young you’re just more fussy about that stuff. When you’re older you’re just grateful.
Anyway, she adds on the phone, “It’s a love story! It’s a movie for goodness sake. It’s meant to be entertaining. It was set in the ’50s. Things were different.” Newton-John tries to stop herself from saying more but adds: “People forget that he changes for her too. He ends up in a letter sweater when she wears the leather jacket. So they are trying to help please each other — and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.
Still a beauty at 70
Olivia, Olivia...WE love You..from France to Japan!!
Looks Great 👍🏼
“Please Mr. Please” perhaps the greatest song writing in history😉