Anyone who claims to not love musicals clearly has never seen Grease . The film is a landmark picture that helped to set a new precedent for both film and stage.
Below are 10+ Grease behind-the-scenes secrets that fans didn’t know. They’re systematic, ultramatic, and hydromatic. Grease up your combs and dust off those leather jackets — let’s ride!
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*Grease* is probably one of the most iconic movies of all time.
Even people who aren’t huge fans of musicals love the movie.
It’s practically impossible not to fall in love with the characters, the music, and the dancing.
However, just because we all love the movie so much, that doesn’t mean that fans know everything about it!
Luckily, we are here to help you out with that.
We’ve compiled a great list of amazing facts about the movie. It’s time to expand your knowledge! Let’s get into it!
1. All of the actors were far older than the characters they portrayed.
Jamie Donnelly, who played Jan , was even going prematurely gray!
Her hair is said to have grown so fast that her roots needed to be colored in daily with a black marker!
2. Marie Osmond turned down the part of Sandy.
Marie had concerns about the message her role in the film might send to her then future children.
“I just didn’t want my teenagers some day to say, you know, ‘You have to go bad to get the boy.’ It was just a personal choice as a some day mother,” she told Larry King.
3. Writer Allan Carr has only one regret:
“I wanted Andy Warhol to play the art teacher,” he said during an interview with EW .
“And one of the studio executives said, ‘We’ll give you everything you want, but I will not have that man in my movie.’ It was some kind of personal vendetta_.”
4. There was a promotional deal with Pepsi that only Allan Carr knew about.
Unfortunately, because he didn’t tell people, it caused more work.
The Coke painting in the diner had to be blurred out and replaced with Pepsi, and small adjustments were made to make it seem like there were other Pepsi paintings.
5. Olivia Newton-John doubted her acting ability.
“I wanted a screen test to see how I looked,” Olivia said during an interview with The Morning Call .
“Luckily, John agreed to test with me. He was so helpful and protective. When I saw the test, I decided on the spot to do the movie.”
6. The Fonz turned down the role of Danny Zuko.
Arthur Fonzarelli, better known as Fonzie or The Fonz, was a principal character on the show Happy Days .
Actor Henry Winkler felt that there were just too many similarities between Danny and Fonzie and was worried about being typecast.
7. Olivia Newton-John had to be sewn into her spandex pants — literally!
“They sewed me into those pants every morning for a week,” recalled Newton-John during an interview with The Morning Call .
“Believe me, I had to be very careful about what I ate and drank. It was excruciating.”
8. John Travolta campaigned hard for Olivia Newton-John to be cast in the film.
“I said, ‘No one hit the notes like Olivia.’ I had influence in those days,” John said to The Morning Call .
“I was tenacious and I really rallied for Olivia to be in it. That’s a pride point for me. I thought America’s sweetheart had to do this movie.”
9. The success of the film made Olivia Newton-John rethink her image.
“I had guys all over me. I started thinking, ‘What have I been doing wrong all these years?’ I didn’t change my image after that, but I did start to take on songs that were a little edgier and sexier . You know, I got ‘Physical.'” Olivia joked during an interview with The Morning Call .
10. John Travolta couldn’t say one line:
“There’s a lyric where he sings, ‘heat lap trials,’” Randal Kleiser told the New York Post .
“But on set, he kept lip-syncing ‘heap’ lap trials. I was beside the camera, yelling, ‘Heat! Heat!’ It didn’t work. If you look at the film, you can see his lips going ‘heap’ instead of ‘heat.’”
11. Adult film star Harry Reems was almost cast as Coach Calhoun!
Clearly Allan Carr was a fan of Harry’s work because he offered him the part right on the spot, no audition required.
The studio, on the other hand, was less than enthused and cut Reems almost immediately after he was cast.
12. Although there are rumors to the contrary, Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta claim to have never dated.
“We never dated. We were friends and we hung out , but that was the extent of it. But to this day, we still keep in touch,” Olivia recalled during an interview with The Morning Call .
13. George Lucas helped the film get re-released for its 20th anniversary.
Director Randal Kleiser recalls a telephone conversation he had with studio head Sherry Lansing during an interview with The Morning Call .
“Oddly enough, George Lucas had been talking to Sherry a few days before and he told her that of all the movies in the Paramount vault, she should bring back Grease because every 9-year-old he knew watched the videotape every day.'”
14. Travolta tried to cure Randal Kleiser’s foot infection with something called a “touch assist.”
“I was lying there with this fever and he’s poking me and poking me and poking me and I’m like, ‘Yes, I feel it.’ ‘Thank you.’ Then he left,” Kleiser said to Vanity Fair .
“The next day I was better, and of course he claimed it was because of the touch assist.”
15. Annette Charles, who played Cha Cha, suffered through an ectopic pregnancy during filming.
However, she refused assistance in order to film the drag race scene.
Immediately after the scene was over, she went to the hospital.
16. Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty were annoyed with the cast.
Apparently, Nicholson and Beatty had offices across from one of the Grease stages and they were busy writing. “They were yelling at us to shut up, because they were trying to write and we were making so much noise down here,” Kleiser said to Bustle .
17. Kleiser had a very high fever when shooting the Frosty Palace scene.
“When I was shooting here, it was very hot, so I was barefooted,” he told Bustle .
“I cut my foot, and I walked through this river, and the next day I had a fever. We were shooting the Frosty Palace scene and I was completely out of it. I had a 101-degree temperature because of cutting my foot here.”
18. During the dance scene, a lot of people got sick, according to Eddie Deezen, who played Eugene.
“We filmed the big dance scene in a school auditorium (at Huntington Park High School) during a very hot summer,” He wrote on Neatorama.
“The school was closed up, there was no air conditioning, and all the doors and windows had to stay closed because of light and sound control.”
“It was reputedly 116 degrees in there while we filmed the dance scene over and over. Several extras had to be taken out because of heat-related illness.”
19. The drive-in scene was improvised, Kleiser told *Bustle*.
“The scene at the drive-in was a big memory for me because it was improvised. I asked to have a bunch of ’50s movie trailers sent, and they didn’t arrive until the day we were shooting. We didn’t know which ones we were gonna use.”
“We had the whole crew sitting around while we ran 10 trailers on the drive-in screen, trying to figure out which one to use for the number.”
“Then I saw the one where the hot dog jumps into the bun, and I said, ‘Hey, do you think we could sync that moment with the playback so it ends the song at that moment?’ These technical guys figured out how to take the playback tape and make it happen, which is pretty complicated to do,” he said.
20. Kleiser also told *Bustle* that Travolta was upset he didn’t get a close-up during the scene.
“John says, ‘Well, aren’t we gonna do a close-up?’ And I said, ‘No, no, that was great.’ He was a little pissed off, because at the end of the number, he wanted to have a close-up. But because the bun worked so well … I said no.”
21. Kleiser also told *Bustle* that he hated the theme song of the movie.
“The original animation was done to a different song. It was done to a ’50s song, and it was very ’50s sounding, and it had a lot of references to ’50s things,” Kleiser said.
“I listened to the lyrics and they didn’t seem right for the movie. They seemed a little dark.”
“So I asked if Barry wouldn’t mind changing the lyrics to make them a little lighter … his solution was, ‘Why don’t you shoot a serious scene?’ Well, we didn’t shoot a serious scene and slapped the song on anyhow, and no one ever noticed that the lyrics were totally wrong for the movie.”
“They were distracted by the animation. It’s good that I lost that creative choice, because it was a giant hit. I would flip on the radio and hear the song at every station.”
22. John Travolta had two requests before he agreed to play Danny Zuko:
“I want blue black hair like Elvis Presley and Rock Hudson in the movies. It’s surreal and it’s very 1950’s,” Travolta explained to writer Allan Carr.
His other request was that he be given another song to sing. They offered him “Greased Lightning,” which was traditionally a Kenickie number.
23. Rizzo’s hickies were the real deal!
Jeff Conaway was vying for authenticity in his performance so he actually gave actress Stockard Channing a hickie in order to make it appear more convincing!
Which to me sounds like nothing more than a creepy excuse to suck on someone’s neck.
Do you know any more interesting behind-the-scenes secrets about the iconic movie *Grease*?
Or were you pleasantly surprised by all the facts we presented you with in the article?
Either way, let us know down below in the comments! We would love to hear from you!
