Olivia Newton-John was already a Grammy-winning country music star when she was cast in good bad Sandy. After the film became the biggest box-office hit in 1978, Olivia Newton-John’s career reached another peak. Thanks to her soundtrack, she became the second woman to have two singles chart on the Billboard Top 5 simultaneously with her contributions “Hopelessly Devoted to You” and “Summer Nights.” In addition to the box office and Billboard success that the musical brought, her performance in Grease also earned her a Golden Globe nomination.
Inspired by her climactic transformation into Bad Sandy, Newton-John reworked her sound and image for her next album Totally Hot to convey more of Pink Ladies. Her theatrical follow-up, Xanadu – starring Gene Kelly – was a critical and commercial failure, but produced a hit soundtrack and a slew of Top 20 singles, including ‘Magic’, which spent five weeks at number one in the charts spent . The film musical was also where she met her first husband, Matt Lattanzi, and gave birth to their daughter, Chloe Rose, in 1986.
In 1981 she released Physical, the biggest album of her career. The daring title track topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 10 weeks, and its tongue-in-cheek, aerobics-inspired music video became an MTV staple. She went on to record 15 more studio albums, achieving a career total of 26 and selling over 100 million copies worldwide.
Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, she became a tireless advocate for cancer research for the rest of her life, founding the Olivia Newton-John Cancer and Wellness Center in Australia. She has also engaged in “hopelessly” philanthropic work, including a stint as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Environment Programme.
Her cancer returned in 2013 and 2017, and on August 8, 2022, her husband John Easterling announced the icon’s death at the age of 73.