Highlights
- John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John had been iconic within the film Grease, however their good fortune was short-lived and they by no means teamed up again.
- Despite the popularity of the Danny and Sandy characters from Grease, their subsequent film together, Two of a Kind, was a critical and commercial failure.
- Both Travolta and Newton-John confronted setbacks of their careers after their initial success, however ultimately discovered success again in later tasks.
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John were two of the most important stars of the past due 1970s. Together, they have been a fit made in Hollywood heaven (even supposing they never got serious off-screen).
Travolta shot to fame as Vinnie Barbarino, the wise-cracking Brooklyn high schooler on the ABC sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. After starring within the 1976 horror mystery Carrie and the made-for-TV drama Boy In the Plastic Bubble, he portrayed Brooklyn dancer Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever, a cinematic staple of the disco age.
Olivia entered showbiz in her local Australia and worked the UK market sooner than she conquered the USA with "I Honestly Love You," her 1974 ballad that ushered a string of hits, together with "Have You Never Been Mellow," "If You Love Me (Let Me Know)," and "Please Mr. Please."
With their co-starring roles in Grease, Travolta and Newton-John had 1978 on virtual lock. But it was once lightning in a bottle that wouldn't strike two times.
Olivia Newton-John And John Travolta Were Iconic In Grease
Grease charts the love-split-love saga of Danny Zuko (Travolta) and Sandy Olsson (Newton-John), two Class of '59 seniors at Rydell High.
Danny is the cool riot who leads the Thunderbirds, a gang of leather-jacketed greasers. Sandy is a straight-laced preppy from Australia who tries to fit in with the Pink Ladies, a boisterous girl clique led via the naughty Rizzo (Stockard Channing).
Danny, to appear cool and aloof, feigns disinterest in Sandy, whose attentions flip in other places. This fires up the rebellion rocker, who makes an attempt more than a few sports to win back her attention.
He in any case shows up in a Letterman jacket, but she surprises him in neck-to-toe leather with the immortal line "Tell me about it, stud." They spoil into the singalong hit "You're the One that I Want" and trip off into the sky.
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Released on June 16, 1978, Grease grossed $366.2 million at the box workplace on a funds of $6 million.
The soundtrack spent twelve nonconsecutive weeks at No. 1 at the Billboard 200, fueled by way of the aforementioned music and 3 additional hits: Olivia's '50s-style ballad "Hopelessly Devoted to You," the kiss-and-tell anthem "Summer Nights" (a karaoke staple), and the Frankie Valli-sung title music (organized in a disco genre to expand the film's appeal amongst contemporary audiences).
Danny and Sandy turned into archetypes of '50s cool animated film kitsch tradition, recreated at retro-theme events and cosplay occasions.
The two stars have been on most sensible of the world in 1978, however nothing lasts eternally.
Olivia And John Appeared In Another Film Together (And It Flopped)
The immediate post-Grease years were booming times for Olivia, who conquered the rock marketplace with her late-1978 album Totally Hot and its sultry, suggestive hit "A Little More Love."
Though her subsequent film, Xanadu, bombed on the box workplace, she notched two hits from the soundtrack: the lucid, mystical "Magic" (a US No. 1) and the glistening ballad "Suddenly" (a duet with UK legend Cliff Richard).
Olivia scored the largest hit of her career with "Physical," a mildly erotic aerobics number that spent ten weeks at No. 1 at the Billboard Hot A hundred right through the iciness of 1981–82.
Times have been less kind to Travolta, who suffered a late-1978 setback along with his first primary bomb: Moment By Moment, a romantic drama co-starring Lily Tomlin. He rebounded with the 1980 drama Urban Cowboy, which spurred hobby in mechanical bulls and flooded the pop charts with country-crossover hits.
In 1981, Travolta played certainly one of his maximum acclaimed roles as a photographer-turned-sleuth in Brian De Palma's Blow Out, a neo-noir thriller co-starring Nancy Allen and John Lithgow. Alas, the film flopped at the box place of work.
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After the underperformance of 1983's Staying Alive, during which Tony Manero conquers Broadway, Travolta used to be putting by his last Hollywood thread.
Amid the continuing popularity of the Danny/Sandy characters, John and Olivia rebooted their partnership with Two of a Kind, a 1983 dramedy about divine intervention. If this film succeeded, they'd form an ongoing cinematic team, a los angeles Rock Hudson and Doris Day.
In Two of a Kind, John performs Zach Melon, a struggling mob-hounded inventor who bank-robs Debbie Wylder (Olivia's personality), an aspiring actress who slips him banknotes and steals the money herself.
He tracks her down and the 2 turn into smitten whilst fleeing hitmen and the regulation. Meanwhile, angels pine for him to make excellent ahead of God casts the final judgment.
Newton-John And Travolta Went Their Separate Ways After Two Of A Kind
Two of a Kind, with its back-and-forth plot and frequently interrupted love story, drew savage evaluations from the click. Roger Ebert declared it "the single worst major movie of the holiday season." He refers to at least one alternate where Zach confronts Debbie in regards to the stolen loot as "dialogue where every person knows what the next line is... it's TV dialogue; it really rings phony."
Though it won modestly on the field administrative center ($23.6 million on a $14 million finances), Two of a Kind was deemed a failure by critics and Hollywood insiders. It used to be nominated for five Razzie Awards but misplaced out in 4 classes (worst picture, director, screenwriter, and actress) to The Lonely Lady starring Pia Zadora.
Despite its shortcomings as a film, Two of a Kind spawned a hit soundtrack album with three Olivia songs: "Livin' in Desperate Times," "Take a Chance" (a ballad duet with John), and "Twist of Fate" (her final Top 10 Billboard single).
Newton-John dropped from the mainstream radar after the meager performance of her 1985 album Soul Kiss.
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Travolta suffered a further blow with the by accident humorous 1985 drama Perfect, through which he performs a Rolling Stone journalist handing over dirt on a fitness membership run by way of Jamie Lee Curtis. He fell into obscurity because the tradition at massive deemed him a relic of the disco generation.
Despite his parts within the ensemble franchise Look Who's Talking, Travolta's career did not recuperate till his portrayal of likable hitman Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 postmodern crime film Pulp Fiction.
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