Grease was the backing track for those of us who grew up in the 70s

Unlike what seems like most of Melbourne, I don’t have a selfie with Olivia Newton-John at the Coles in Richmond. I don’t have an anecdote like my mate Nicko about hanging with her on a balcony at the Xanadu dance contest at Chasers in 1980.

What I do have is memories of Olivia as the backing track to my early 1970s in the back of the Valiant as Mum dropped off Tupperware to eastern suburbs housewives. My brother Sammy and I were thrilled when You’re So Vain and Maggie May were followed on AM radio by ONJ’s Banks of the Ohio and If Not For You.

Olivia Newton-John (centre) with Didi Conn (right, in pink) singing Summer Lovin’ in Grease.Credit:Getty

Future generations had the Wiggles as their pre-school musical love. We had Liv. I’m not sure if I knew what she looked like then. Countdown wasn’t on yet but from her voice and lyrics about love (“please mister please, don’t play B17”) I rightly suspected she was stupendously chocolate box pretty.

Then she was replaced in my consciousness and record collection by the Bay City Rollers. Until August 1978, when suddenly Olivia was not only back but the leading lady in what was the cultural touchstone, the rite of passage, for anyone growing up at the time, Grease.

Based on a stage musical – the brainchild of an art teacher and an advertising copywriter – which debuted in an old Chicago tram factory, Grease was a game changer. Thanks to the songs, star-crossed romance, high school antics, frothy angst, it was the highest-grossing movie musical ever until its 2008 eclipse by Mamma Mia!

At its heart, the serenity and apple cheeks of Olivia Newton-John.

Grease was a game-changer, a rite of passage for teenagers at the time.

Like 9/11 and Princess Di’s death, everyone knows where and when they first saw Grease. My mate Margie was 14, queueing in “bad jeans, bad jumper, bad hair” outside the Bercy cinema at the top of Bourke St.

Olivia’s death at the age of 73 from the breast cancer she lived with for three decades made Margie tear up watching the TV tributes, packed with old clips of ONJ in her Xanadu roller-skating pomp, wide-eyed doing I Honestly Love You in ’74, duetting in a Camilla top and jeans with Farnesy on Two Strong Hearts in 2020.

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