The sweet-voiced singer who had numerous No. 1 hits was also a supporter of cancer research.
Olivia Newton-John, the Australian singer with the dulcet voice who became a country-pop, folk-pop, rock-pop, and disco-pop sensation in the 1970s, who starred in the blockbuster musical “Grease,” and who gained notoriety for her massively successful 1981 album “Physical,” passed away on August 8 at her ranch in Southern California. She was 73.
She “has been a symbol of achievements and hope for over 30 years sharing her fight with breast cancer,” according to her family’s Facebook statement announcing her death.
Although more information was not immediately available, she held a 12-acre residence on the Santa Ynez River close to Santa Barbara for a number of years.
After receiving treatment for breast cancer in 1992, Ms. Newton-John revealed in 2017 that it had spread and come back. (She later admitted that since 2013, she has been fighting the illness secretly.)
Ms. Newton-John has promoted environmental concerns as well as cancer research and awareness since receiving her initial diagnosis at age 44.
She performed for presidents and a pope, the sick and the disabled, and she promoted music as a kind of spiritual healing. She also raised millions of dollars to support the Austin Hospital in Melbourne’s Olivia Newton-John Cancer Wellness and Research Center.
Her most recent CDs contained motivational music about overcoming trauma, finding love, and making friends.
In 2007, she told a reporter, “Music has always helped me in my healing, and now it is my goal that it inspires healing in others.”
Her sincerity stood in stark contrast to the cheery Australian with ethereal good features who initially made a name for herself as a teen singing sensation on Melbourne TV shows in the middle of the 1960s and had a runaway hit in England with her 1971 solo song of Bob Dylan’s “If Not for You.”
Over the following ten years, she achieved five No. 1 hits with “I Honestly Love You,” “Have You Never Been Mellow,” “You’re the One That I Want,” “Magic,” and “Physical.” She also won four Grammy Awards, hosted television specials that attracted tens of millions of viewers, and was Australia’s all-time most popular solo music performer.
However, her expertly crafted, sugary-sweet mingling of styles upset purists of all hues and led some critics to look for derogatory terms. If white bread could sing, one said, it would sound like her weak, unremarkable voice (“If white bread could sing. Her music, according to a Playboy reporter, “makes you feel as if you’ve been wrapped in cotton candy and set out in the sun.”
When Ms. Newton-John won the female vocalist of the year award from the Country Music Association in 1974, Nashville luminaries Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton started a short-lived competing group with the goal of keeping pop singers out of their musical realm. Some of her critics circulated the possibly untrue rumor that Ms. Newton-John had been eager to meet Hank Williams, the country legend who had been dead for 20 years, while on a trip to the city of country music.
Whatever her reputation, Ms. Newton-John eschewed retaliating in like to criticism and was regarded as one of the most morally pure performers in the industry. According to what she told the Detroit Free Press, “I was just a performer the audience found enjoyable.” And ultimately, isn’t the view of the audience the only one that matters?
She exacted revenge at the cash register with popular songs like “Clearly Love,” which sold one million copies (1975). She used self-deprecating humor to temper expectations during her sold-out concert hall performances. She famously told a Las Vegas audience: “About every 10 years, a really amazing song comes up. I’d want to sing one of my songs until then.
Then “Grease” (1978) appeared, showcasing her charm and seductive appeal. Ms. Newton-John played the cheerleader and goody-goody exchange student Sandy in the movie, which was based on the popular Broadway musical comedy set in a 1950s high school. John Travolta played the (not so) bad-boy gang leader Danny.
By the conclusion, she has changed into a temptress wearing skin-tight black leggings, a black biker’s jacket, and red stilettos, while he is flaunting a varsity letterman sweater. She instantly became the pinup for a young boy generation. She remarked, “Those pants transformed my life.”
Vincent Canby, a critic for the New York Times, praised Ms. Newton-performance John’s as “quite humorous and completely delightful.” Her on-stage chemistry with Travolta in songs like “Summer Nights” and “You’re the One That I Want” particularly caught the attention of the audience. Millions of copies of the soundtrack were sold, and it brought people back to the cinema, sparking a perfect storm of business.
She wasted her fame in the musical roller-disco fantasy “Xanadu” (1980), which also starred Gene Kelly and the Electric Light Orchestra. It delivered her the number-one song “Magic,” but it was otherwise a critical and financial disaster, which she exacerbated with the dud “Two of a Kind” (1983), in which Travolta also starred.
She continued to look for a persona to support her musical career. She was the blue-eyed girl who lived next door and spoke in a low, smokey whisper. Afterward, she transformed into the swaying discotheque queen, her golden hair styled into sassy flip wigs. Helmut Newton, a kinky photographer, made an awful attempt to vixenize her by photographing her with a naked back and a riding crop for the album “Soul Kiss” cover in 1985.
The portrayal of Ms. Newton-John was startlingly out of character; she claimed that in her private life, she was far more traditional and even “boring.” She was concerned that “Physical,” an overtly sexual song originally written for British artist Rod Stewart, may offend her followers. Before the song was published, she decided to first create a lighter video that was set in a gym full of overweight men rather than a boudoir.