Review Notebook: Desperately Dedicated to Olivia Newton-John

If you grew up in a house tuned to AM radio in the 1970s and early 1980s, the crystal-clear voice of Olivia Newton-John, who died Monday at age 73 on her Southern California ranch, was likely a big part of it. of your life. her childhood. soundtrack.

This was especially true if you grew up in Australia, where we enthusiastically claim it as our own, although ONJ was born in Britain and moved to Melbourne with his family when he was 5. I just have to think of Bob Dylan’s nostalgic soft rock country song from 1971 called “If Not for You” to start playing in my head during the day. “Let Me Be There,” from his self-titled debut solo album, has the same staying power on me as does “Banks of the Ohio,” a 19th-century ballad about domestic murder performed with sweet, supple simplicity. misty harmonies

Olivia was Australia’s answer to Karen Carpenter, whose melodic, mid-tempo voice had taken off in America just a year or two earlier. Her success coincided with that of Helen Read, another major Australian female vocal export, who broke into the US market in a big way and was instrumental in furthering Newton-John’s international aspirations.

Like many nerdy teenagers who desperately want to be cool, I resisted my childhood love of ONJ for a while, preferring rock art like Pink Floyd and Yes, and drooling over the corny sentimentality of Newton-John’s ubiquitous hits: “I honestly love you. “love. You’ and ‘You were never soft’. But Nashville-tinged hits like “If You Love Me, Let Me Know” and “Please, Sir, Please” had me on my toes, like it or not. They still do.

The Newton-John watershed was his lead role opposite John Travolta in 1978. fatgiving it a stratospheric boost, much like the Anglo-Australian pop kings The Bee Gees in another film directed by Robert Stigwood the year before, also starring Travolta. night fever.

With his music career already under way, ONJ didn’t want to risk another screen lock after his first foray into film, a little sci-fi pop insta-kitsch called. Morning, fell and burned. But Stigwood co-producer Alan Carr convinced her to start, adapting the musical role of Sandy in ONJ, and the character became an Australian exchange student.

Two songs written and produced by Newton-John’s longtime musical collaborator John Farrar, “Hopefully Devoted to You” and his duet with Travolta, “You’re the One That I Want”, were added to turn the soundtrack into a box office success.

but fat Becoming the highest-grossing release of 1978 and, at the time, the highest-grossing musical film in history, its fun, retro 1950s Frankie and Annette left some critics cold. ONJ was Australia’s pop royalty, and I can still remember the collective national disappointment when the first reviews appeared in Los Angeles, with headlines like “Olivia Newton-John ‘Bland’ in the first big movie.”

But there were no signs of disappointment at the single-screen Paramount Cinema in Sydney, where my best friend and I saw the film on its opening weekend, with mixed responses from audiences. This started a tradition that continued for months, where we would return every Friday night as devout gay pilgrims to see him again, sometimes dressed in 1950s thrift store clothes. We didn’t know all the songs, we knew all the words. from memory.

Objectively speaking, Newton-John’s performance may not have the greatest range, but it’s perfect for a part that recalls the brash, clean integrity of Doris Day or, as more clearly expressed in the song, Sandra Dee. And Sandy’s mean girl transformation at the end of carnival – spandex was all the rage back then! – caused a lasting stir in ONJ’s pop career when she shrugged off her pretty girl image with sexy hits like “Physical”.

The song’s racy music video was an early ’80s riff on “Ain’t There Nobody Here for Love?” by Jane Russell. starting Gentlemen prefer blondes.S. It featured a frustrated Olivia focusing the men’s attention on her training before waving slyly at her gay fans and ending up with the two boys holding hands.

Crazy fat The fanatic in me (still can’t get over it when it comes to a cable or streaming platform) has ruined the experience of watching ONJ’s next movie, The 1980 Disaster Xanadu, opening weekend. This brilliant fantasy about a wandering artist from Venice Beach meeting a skating Greek muse, Kira by Newton-John, is seen as the final nail in the musical film’s coffin, as well as one of the farewells of the genre. screen. All-time greats, Gene Kelly.

but my feelings Xanadu It got hotter with time, as he considered it a trastacular classic. Decades of movie reviews have taught you that critical faculties are irrelevant when it comes to award-winning children’s movies. My partner is 11 years younger and has participated Xanadu Loyal since his mother took him in as a child and then literally played the tape to death. This followed her previous mother-daughter relationship. fat. (Apparently, he took her exclusively to over-the-top musicals — I can’t stop the music! – or horror movies, but that’s a subject for another column).

Returns Xanadu (Threat of Divorce) deepened my love especially for its soundtrack, filled with hits from ONJ and Electric Light Orchestra, whose co-founder Jeff Lynne produced the record with Farrar. Olivia’s “Magic”, “Suspended in Time”, the title track, and “Suddenly” (a duet with Cliff Richard, who helped launch her career by marking her as an opening act years ago in England) remain, while “I’m Alive” and “All Over the World” are ELO par excellence, no matter what choreographed war crimes play out on screen when you hear them.

The film’s rehabilitation was aided by the hilarious 2007 Broadway musical parody of the same name, in which Kerry Butler played Kira with too much of a “Stryan accent” and Cheyenne Jackson paid tribute to Michael Beck’s wooden ugliness. – Screen star as Sonny Malone. Olivia proved to be quite sporty, joining the show and giving her a playful kiss at the start of her tour.

The Xanadu The audition proved that even silly movies could give Newton-John big hits. A brilliant fantasy from 1983 two types, who paired him with Travolta in a joke about a vengeful god threatening to destroy the world and angels sent to save it through a romance between an inventor and a bank teller, was rightfully ignored. But he did produce the incredible pop piece “Twist of Fate,” which, like ONJ’s other big hit, “A Little More Love,” has high notes that are a recipe for karaoke humiliation. I speak from experience.

In the decades that followed, Newton-John’s film work became much more sporadic, though he did appear in film and television adaptations of Del Shore’s beloved Texas comedy. terrible life, which has a kind of cult to follow. And her recording career has taken a backseat in advocating breast cancer awareness since her long battle with the disease began when she was diagnosed in 1992. Since then, she has continued to discuss health issues very publicly with grace and candor. typical. An early advocate of the use of cannabis for pain management and founder of the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Center in Melbourne.

Their private and public personalities were explored in Lifetime Movie 2018 (adapted from the Australian miniseries) Olivia Newton-John: Desperately Dedicated to You, in which she was played by another golden-voiced Australian pop star, Delta Goodrem. It was as conventional a biodrama as you can imagine, but naturally my partner and I watched it with the solemn attention of the church choir boys.

When news broke that Olivia’s cancer had returned in 2017 and had metastasized to her spine, it was like a stab in the stomach for those of us who have loved her for a lifetime. Even though we like to think of ourselves as Rizzo or Cha-Cha Di-Gregorio, deep down we’re still basically Sandy Olson.