“Physical” also pushed her early successes on the country charts into history, becoming a pop perennial as enduring as “Grease,” but it didn’t open another chapter in her career. Spending 10 weeks at the top of the Billboard charts, “Physical” became the kind of hit that redefined Newton-John’s public persona, helping to soften the blow of “Xanadu,” the 1980 roller-disco extravaganza that effectively brought her silver screen dreams to a close. That simmering sense of seduction could reach a boil, as it did when she closed out “Grease” duetting with John Travolta on “You’re the One That I Want” while dressed in skin-tight leather or on the video to her 1981 smash “Physical,” where she happily played a seductress on the prowl. But Newton-John, who died on Monday from breast cancer at age 73, was never truly was a bad girl - whether she sang country or disco, she specialized in the mellowest rock - yet a key part of her appeal lay in how her soft touch seemed sensuous, not saccharine. Olivia Newton-John played a good girl gone bad in “Grease,” the movie that turned her into a superstar in 1978.
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