Olivia Newton-John’s ‘vivid’ and ‘challenging’ life to be focus of new Netflix documentary

Olivia New­ton-John’s life sto­ry will be told in a new Net­flix doc. Pic­ture: Alamy

The ‘You’re The One That I Want’ star’s life will be remem­bered in a new doc­u­men­tary film.

Olivia New­ton-John is the lat­est beloved star whose life sto­ry will be explored in a Net­flix doc­u­men­tary.

Dead­line announced yes­ter­day (June 24) that the as-of-yet unti­tled film (which is cur­rent­ly in pro­duc­tion) will land on the stream­ing plat­form in the future.

• Olivia New­ton-John and John Tra­vol­ta get the gig­gles as adorable Grease inter­view descends into chaos
• Lis­ten to Olivia Newton-John’s ‘My Dream’ — a long-lost song dis­cov­ered after the late singer’s death
• Olivia New­ton-John’s hus­band opens up about los­ing wife and how he marked their 15th anniver­sary

Direct­ed by Oscar-nom­i­nat­ed doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er Nicole Newn­ham, yesterday’s announce­ment shared that the fea­ture-length non-fic­tion film will explore Olivia’s life “in her own words, through vivid archival and via rem­i­nis­cences from close friends and col­lab­o­ra­tors”.

The doc­u­men­tary will look at “the music, life, and mag­ic of beloved pop star and cul­tur­al phe­nom Olivia New­ton-John” and “fol­low Olivia’s jour­ney as the world falls mad­ly in love with her and she ascends to the height of fame, only to be con­front­ed by chal­lenges of epic pro­por­tions”.

Born in the UK, Olivia moved to Aus­tralia with her fam­i­ly when she was five.

• Oscars 2023: John Tra­vol­ta holds back tears pay­ing trib­ute to Olivia New­ton-John
• Olivia New­ton-John’s 10 best songs ever, ranked
• Watch Olivia New­ton-John and John Tra­vol­ta dance one last time in adorable final inter­view

She began her music career as a teenag­er, and found ear­ly suc­cess with songs ‘Let Me Be There’ and ‘I Hon­est­ly Love You’. She would go on to become one of the best­selling music artists of all time, win four Gram­mys, a Day­time Emmy and nine Bill­board Music Awards.

In 1978, Olivia cement­ed her place in movie his­to­ry when she starred as Sandy along­side John Tra­vol­ta’s Dan­ny in Grease.

John Tra­vol­ta per­forms with Ringo Starr

The mul­ti-tal­ent­ed star was also a pas­sion­ate activist for breast can­cer aware­ness. She was diag­nosed with the dis­ease three times before she passed away in 2022, aged 73.

Netflix’s doc­u­men­tary aims to tell Olivia’s life sto­ry to high­light “the sto­ry of a woman who was per­pet­u­al­ly under­es­ti­mat­ed despite her mes­mer­iz­ing tal­ent,” but who “ulti­mate­ly silenced her detrac­tors by push­ing through phe­nom­e­nal loss and pain with grace and grat­i­tude.

“By dis­cov­er­ing how to stay true to her beliefs, Olivia changed our cul­ture for the bet­ter, bend­ing it towards kind­ness, inclu­siv­i­ty, and love,” the streamer’s announce­ment con­tin­ued.

Doc­u­men­tary direc­tor Nicole added: “Olivia always signed her let­ters ‘love and light’ and that is the shim­mer­ing and hope­ful lega­cy she has left us.

“As a young girl, I fell in love with her, lis­ten­ing to Grease on the record play­er on repeat. But this unique film­mak­ing jour­ney – deep into the archives and into the amaz­ing com­mu­ni­ty of Olivia’s close friends and fam­i­ly – has revealed a com­plex and extra­or­di­nary woman whose impact on the world is still rip­pling out­wards.”