John Travolta may have been hopelessly devoted to Olivia Newton-John long before fans ever watched them light up the screen in Grease.
The Hollywood star, now 72, reportedly pushed hard for Newton-John to land the role of Sandy Olsson in the 1978 movie musical, after his rise on Welcome Back, Kotter and just before Saturday Night Fever turned him into one of the biggest names in showbiz.
“I never let up on it,” Travolta previously said. “I insisted that she be met, and that we cast her.”
That decision helped create one of the most famous on-screen pairings in movie history.
Travolta and Newton-John’s chemistry as Danny Zuko and Sandy became the beating heart of Grease, helping the film rake in $366 million worldwide and turning the two stars into pop culture icons.
But according to insiders and a new tell-all, the spark between them may have gone far beyond the cameras.
“For John, it was instant attraction with Olivia,” one insider claimed. “He fell for her.”
Now, nearly 48 years after Grease was filmed, new claims are raising eyebrows about what allegedly kept the two from becoming a real-life Hollywood couple.
According to A Little More Love: The Life and Legacy of Olivia Newton-John by Matthew Hild, Newton-John allegedly considered what life with Travolta might have looked like. But the book suggests one major issue may have weighed on her mind: his connection to Scientology.
Travolta had converted from Catholicism to Scientology two years before filming Grease in the summer of 1977.
While Newton-John and Travolta remained close for decades, Hild’s book claims she later wondered whether marrying him would have meant pressure to join the church herself.
According to the book, Newton-John allegedly opened up to a musician friend more than 20 years later. The pal had reportedly once been married to a Scientologist, making him someone she felt could understand the concern.
“Obviously, you know John is a Scientist,” she allegedly said, according to the book. “I know the Church of Scientology really reveres him as a very valuable follower. If I had married John, would he have expected me to become a Scientist?”
The friend reportedly told her it would not have been “mandatory,” but it likely would have been “encouraged.”
Newton-John’s alleged response was short and telling.
“Thank you,” she reportedly replied. “That’s all I want to know.”
For longtime Grease fans, the claim adds a dramatic new twist to one of Hollywood’s greatest almost-love stories.
Newton-John herself admitted in her 2019 memoir that there was real attraction between her and Travolta when they first met.
“When we walked inside the room together, it was magic, and everyone saw it,” she wrote. “Yes, we really liked each other and there was an attraction.”
The two stars long denied officially dating, saying they were each involved with other people during filming.
Still, not everyone around them seemed convinced it was only acting.
Didi Conn, who played Frenchy in Grease, has recalled a cut kiss scene that she believed felt very real.
According to Conn, Travolta pulled Newton-John in for what she described as the “juiciest kiss,” and Newton-John appeared to respond in the moment.
“You see for a moment she’s surprised, and then she responds. It’s juicy, and it’s great,” Conn said.
“They weren’t acting in that moment. It was like he had his chance and he was going to take it. It was real — it really was.”
Director Randal Kleiser reportedly considered adding another kiss between Danny and Sandy in the final scene, when their car flies into the sky, but ultimately decided against it.
Travolta never hid how much Newton-John captivated him.
“If you were a young man in the ’70s, and I’m sure many of you were out there, if you remember that album cover of Olivia with that blue shirt on, with those big blue eyes staring right at you, every boy’s, every man’s dream was, ‘Oh, I’d love for that girl to be my girlfriend,’” he once gushed.
One insider claimed Travolta’s admiration for Newton-John went far deeper than her beauty.
“John became enamored with Olivia,” the insider said. “She was an older woman, five years his senior. He knew she was the kind of woman who would tell it to him straight. There was nothing pretentious about her. She was also warm and caring, and she had a captivating voice.”
Even if the romance never became the fairy tale fans hoped for, Travolta and Newton-John built a bond that lasted more than 45 years.
They reunited professionally in the 1983 film Two of a Kind and later teamed up again for the 2012 holiday album This Christmas.
Newton-John often spoke warmly about Travolta, once saying, “There’s a safety I feel when I’m with him. He’s always been my protector.”
Friends have claimed the loyalty between them ran both ways.
“She was a constant support throughout all his highs and lows, and he was a devoted friend during her battle with cancer,” the insider said.
Newton-John died in August 2022 at age 73 after a long battle with breast cancer.
Her death was a crushing blow for Travolta, who had already lost his wife, Kelly Preston, to the same disease in 2020 at age 57.
After Newton-John’s passing, Travolta shared an emotional tribute to the woman who had been his Sandy, his close friend and, according to some insiders, the great love story that never fully happened.
“My dearest Olivia, you made all of our lives so much better,” he wrote. “Your impact was incredible. I love you so much. We will see you down the road and we will all be together again. Yours from the moment I saw you and forever! Your Danny
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