An early memory I have is staring into giant blue eyes. They were Olivia Newton-John's eyes, rimmed in liner, on the cover of her 1975 album "Have You Never Been Mellow," a staple on my parents' record player, along with Peter, Paul and Mary, and John Denver. I saw those eyes again — and again and again — in "Grease" (1978), a film my little sister and I begged to watch and re-watch, perhaps initially due to the animated title sequence.
But Newton-John, who died at age 73 on Monday after dealing with cancer for many years, kept us watching. She embodies Sandy in the musical comedy, a vacationing high schooler who has a summer romance with John Travolta's local boy Danny Zuko. When Sandy's parents enroll her in Rydell High, where Danny attends and is the leader of the greaser gang, the T-birds, the romance has a chance to continue.
