![]() ![]() Though she would tally three more top-five country singles and reliably crossed over to the adult contemporary charts, she was firmly entrenched as a pop star in the U.S. 1, “Have You Never Been Mellow,” arrived in 1975. 6 country the song earned Newton-John female vocalist of the year kudos at the Country Music Assn. Her early career peaked in 1974 with the ballad “I Honestly Love You,” which topped the pop chart and peaked at No. The former number garnered a Grammy Award for best female country vocal performance, and Newton-John additionally scored an Academy of Country Music Award as most promising female vocalist. Her MCA singles “Let Me Be There” and “If You Love Me (Let Me Know)” reached the top 10 of both the country and pop charts. ![]() in 1971, but she had to wait two years before making a major impact in the States. ![]() ‘She’s too plastic, beautiful and will never happen.’ So, I said, ‘She’s beautiful, she’s not plastic and it’s gonna happen big time.’”īoth “If Not for You” and her version of the folk standard “Banks of the Ohio” managed to chart in the U.S. I loved it and I was put down for buying it. I paid $25,000 for that record, and was second-guessed. “I heard her version on an acetate,” veteran A&R exec Russ Regan recalled in a 2014 interview with author Harvey Kubernik. had a good feeling he had about her prospects - but that wasn’t shared by everyone at the time. Following that all-but-buried motion picture and its equally little-known soundtrack album, her solo career took off with “If Not for You,” a cover of the countrified Bob Dylan-George Harrison song.The executive who signed Newton-John to MCA Records in the U.S. She made her movie debut with two very obscure film musicals - “Funny Things Happen Down Under” in 1965, followed in 1970 by “Tomorrow,” a sci-fi musical starring a group of the same name that included Newton-John as lead singer, remembered as producer Don Kirshner’s attempt to formulate a U.K. She returned to Britain on a plane ticket she won competing on the Aussie talent show “Sing, Sing, Sing.” Though she recorded for British Decca during her stay, she grew homesick and returned to the Antipodes, but moved back to England to perform with her music partner Pat Carroll. When she was 6, her family moved to Melbourne.Īctive in music from high school, Newton-John went pro in her teens, appearing on Australian TV. Her grandfather was the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Born. How lucky am I that I’ve been in movies where I’ve danced with two of the greatest dancers of all time – with Gene Kelly and John Travolta? I never would have thought that because I had two left feet growing up.Newton-John was born September 26, 1948, in Cambridge, England. I still can’t believe I danced with Gene Kelly. In 2012, Olivia Newton John told The Daily Herald that she was honored to work with such an important cinematic figure: He was lovely. Even though Xanadu was a total disaster, Kelly was pure class and never trashed the movie. He throws himself into ever dance scene and even plays along with Michael Beck’s statuesque performance as Sonny Malone. Kelly brings everything he has to the neon roller disco musical, it's just so far out of control that he can’t course correct with his rakish smile and fancy footwork.Īs Danny Maguire, Kelly is like a captain going down with the ship. Gene Kelly is such a golden era legend (and legitimately amazing dancer) that it's a drag that Xanadu is his cinematic swan song. The roller disco club in the movie is named Xanadu, a fantasy land made popular in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1816 poem "Kubla Khan." And yes, the poem is quoted in the film. It’s one of those classic movie moments that don’t really translate to a modern audience, especially when Malone just says “what the…” before watching Olivia Newton John skate away. She plants a smooch on him before disappearing. After the movie’s intro, Olivia Newton John roller skates through the park where she slides right up to our main character, Sonny Malone, played by The Warriors star Michael Beck. The roller skating is one of the more confusing aspects of the film. The film is so committed to the ‘40s story aesthetics that it begins with a very long shot of the old Universal logo before fading into a neon dance scene that has a great ELO song and some not so great effects. ![]() Jordan which makes the existence of this movie all the more confusing. Down To Earth itself is a sequel to the film Here Comes Mr. Aside from starring Gene Kelly, the film is more or less a straight remake of 1947’s Down To Earth just with more roller skating. Conceptually, Xanadu fits right into the world of 1940s fantasy musicals. ![]()
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