Movie size, singer, fighter: Olivia Newton-John is dead

Created: 08/08/2022, 23:18

Olivia Newton-John at the 2016 CMA Awards ceremony. © Evan Agostini/Invision via AP/dpa

The film musical "Grease" made Olivia Newton-John a superstar.

In recent years, she has made a name for herself with her battle with cancer.

Now she died at the age of 73.

Los Angeles - More than 40 years ago, young Olivia Newton-John squeezed into a skin-tight leather outfit and became world famous as the blonde, curly-haired Sandy in the hit musical "Grease" opposite John Travolta.

The singer and actress celebrated this breakthrough in 1978 when she blossomed from good schoolgirl to 1950s bombshell in "Grease".

"It was an eye-opener for me too, because I was more of a hippie-bohemian type of dress style, and that was va-va-va-boom!" she wrote in her memoir, Don't stop believin'": "Strength comes from being in charge and being who you want to be."

Now, at 73, Newton-John has lost her decades-long battle with cancer.

Her husband John Easterling announced that she died "peacefully" on their ranch in Southern California.

She was surrounded by friends and family.

"Olivia has been a symbol of victory and hope for more than 30 years as she shared her journey with breast cancer," it said on Instagram.

Long fight against cancer

In 1992 she was diagnosed with cancer for the first time and had to have a breast removed.

In 2013, the cancer returned and also spread to the shoulder.

In 2018, a tumor was found in her lower spine.

In 2019, Newton-John auctioned off her iconic "Grease" outfits along with 500 pieces from her closet and keepsake collection - for a good cause.

Part of the auction proceeds went to a cancer center she founded in Australia.

"Hopefully it will help us to beat cancer, that's my dream," she said in an interview with the German Press Agency at the time.

In the run-up to the auction, she was in the limelight and shone for photographers.

"I'm doing fantastically well," she said.

"A year ago I couldn't walk and now I'm back on my feet."

Newton-John became a star at a young age

Little Olivia was born on September 26, 1948 into a German-British academic family.

Her grandfather was the quantum physicist and Nobel Prize winner Max Born, who had fled the Nazis with his family to Cambridge in 1933.

When she was five years old, the family emigrated to Australia.

Newton-John formed a girl band there as a teenager.

John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John at a 2006 gala dinner in Los Angeles.

© Branimir Kvartuc/AP/dpa

A talent competition brought the 15-year-old back to Britain, where she recorded her first record in 1966.

In 1974 she represented Great Britain with her song "Long Live Love" in the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton and came fourth.

Then "Grease" came and made her world famous.

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She later stood in front of the camera on roller skates for the fantasy musical "Xanadu" (1980) and landed a number one hit in her adopted country, the USA, with the album "Physical" in 1981.

She was also successful in Germany.

The album won a Grammy, but some American radio stations banned the songs because of explicit sexual innuendos.

Husband Easterling is a plant expert

The high flight ended in 1992: her father died of liver cancer, and a little later Newton-John was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She has worked tirelessly for breast cancer survivors ever since, raising funds for research and treatment.

In 2008 she married her second husband, businessman John Easterling, with whom she shared an interest in natural medicine.

Olivia Newton-John at a concert in Singapore in 2007.

© epa How Hwee Young/EPA/dpa

For her own treatment, she relied on conventional medicine and cannabis oil.

Her husband is a plant expert who grows cannabis and prepares tinctures for her, the American by choice said in 2019. "I take this every day and it got me off strong painkillers." Singing was also therapy for her.

"I still love to sing, but I have no plans to go on a concert tour." dpa