Olivia by Tim Ewbank

Author:Tim Ewbank [Ewbank, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749909840
Amazon: 0749909846
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 2011-11-02T07:00:00+00:00

I went almost directly from Saturday Night Fever to Grease, so making Grease was a wonderful change of pace. And since no one really recognised me as a big star yet - Saturday Night Fever wasn’t yet out - I felt good because people obviously thought I had the ability to do the heavier drama stuff and the light comedy singing and dancing too. It was exciting to assert myself in both styles, especially at a time when I was known only as one of the sweathogs on Welcome Back, Kotter.

Everyone in the movie industry predicted John would be a sensation in the movie, and so it proved. ‘Move over, Elvis. There’s a new pelvis in town,’ wrote one celebrated showbiz observer, who went on to describe John as the hottest thing in Teenybopper Heaven since peanut butter. The good vibes rubbed off on John. ‘The first thing I did when I got to New York to promote Saturday Night Fever was walk down Fifth Avenue,’ he said, ‘and every fifth person would recognise me and yell, “Hey, there’s John Travolta!” It was great. I got off on it.’

By the time filming was under way on Grease, word was getting round that Saturday Night Fever had created a major new Hollywood star. Wherever the Grease filming took him, John was increasingly greeted with female hysteria and, as his co-star and love interest on screen, Olivia received envious looks from jealous teenage girls, notably when it was eventually, and inevitably, rumoured that she and John had become romantically entwined off screen as well as on.

John had come to the Grease set toned, fit, reed thin, perfectly attuned to the role ahead and ready to dance his colourful socks off. An early glance at the script had told Olivia she would not have to match him step for step. In fact, there were no plans for the couple to dance together at all. But once choreographer Pat Birch realised Olivia was more than capable of putting one foot in front of the other, the script was altered to include a major dancing sequence for her with John. Pat was impressed with the way Olivia could move and arranged for her and John to team up in a scene where Rydell’s students pair off for the televised dance-off competition. Olivia found the prospect daunting. ‘Boy, can he dance!’ she marvelled after seeing John’s electrifying, liquid-limbed moves for the first time in Saturday Night Fever.

For the movie that was to make him a superstar, John had gone into training for five months with a strict regime that included dancing for three hours a day and running for a further two. ‘I had to lose twenty pounds to get what you see on the screen,’ he explained, ‘and so I hired the boxer who trained Sylvester Stallone for Rocky. When I started I couldn’t even do one of the knee bends I do in the film. By the end I had a whole new body.’

Olivia

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