Celebrity Life
Why Friendships Last Longer than Marriage, Ask John Travolta
A tribute to Olivia Newton-John
In the end, they were together. That is how it ended for Danny and Sandy in the movie, Grease.
We sometimes forget that actors are real people, with real lives and real feelings. Or sometimes we think they are the roles they play in a movie. Who wouldn't wish that Danny and Sandy would be a real-life couple?
With the news of Olivia Newton-John's passing, everyone wondered what happened to Danny and Sandy or to the actors who played the high school sweethearts that my generation loved for over forty years.
I can’t believe it has been that long since the movie was shown in 1978.
Why friendships last longer than marriage
Friends are the family we choose, it’s a bonus if the family we are born into becomes our friends, but most of the time we meet people we learn to love, and yet they don’t become our lovers.
And most of the time, they outlive our lovers.
Many of those who place a friendship at the center of their life find that their most significant relationship is incomprehensible to others — Rhaina Cohen
It could be because we have fewer expectations of our friends than of our lovers. The consistency of spending time with our friends could also be one of the reasons why friendship outlasts a relationship.
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John became lifelong friends instead of lovers. If they had been lovers, who knew what could have happened, in an interview Olivia Newton-John had this to say;
‘I think it was good, because I think it kept the tension there and the chemistry. It might have been a real disaster had we decided to date or we had a falling out or something.’ — Speaking on the Mamma Mia No Filter podcast in 2018
What happened was forty years of friendship that only ended in the physical realm. John Travolta, in a touching tribute to Olivia Newton-John, lovingly remembered his friend of over forty years with these words.
My dearest Olivia, you made all of our lives so much better. 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 first moment I saw you and forever! Your Danny, your John! — John Travolta
An Old Clip of John Travolta Gushing Over Olivia Newton-John in ‘Grease’ Is Going Viral — Goodhousekeeping
Listen to what John Travolta said in an old interview about Olivia Newton-John. (Check out at the 48-second mark.)
“They had brought up Linda Ronstadt. They had brought up Marie Osmond. And I said, they’re wonderful,” John said, while a blushing Olivia sat next to him. “But every guy in the world wants Olivia Newton-John as their girlfriend, and I knew that ’cause I wanted that. I felt the same way.”
“And every girl wants to be like her. If you [the Grease casting agents] don’t see this, you guys are nuts, ’cause there was only one person in the world that was Sandy, and that was Olivia Newton-John.” — Entertainment Tonight
Here are some of the reasons you need friends more than you need a partner
- Last Longer
- Relationship Troubles
- Less Complicated
- Impartial
- You Need Friends
- More Relaxing
- Always There For You
Let us look back at the real-life Danny and Sandy forty years after
In an interview with PEOPLE,
“We did something life-changing, making that film,” Newton-John tells PEOPLE. In those 40 years of friendship, there were marriages, divorce, children, and even sorrow when John Travolta lost his firstborn child with his wife Kelly Preston.
“[In tough times] John always reaches out to me,” she says. Travolta echoes the sentiment.
“When you share that kind of meteoric success — and nothing has been able to exceed it — you share a bond,” he says. “I’ve been through her having a child, getting divorced, losing her sister. She’s been through my getting married, and having children. It’s wonderful and full of shared memories.”
In 2020, John Travolta lost his wife Kelly to breast cancer, and there’s no doubt that Olivia Newton-John was there during his time of profound grief.
Final words
My dearest Olivia, you made all of our lives so much better. 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 first moment I saw you and forever! Your Danny, your John! — John Travolta
John Travolta lost three women he loved to cancer. His first love Diana Hyland died of breast cancer in 1977. His wife Kelly Preston died of breast cancer in 2020.
And now his friend of over forty years Olivia Newton-John died of breast cancer in 2022.
But as John Travolta said in his tribute to Olivia Newton-John,
We will see you down the road and we will all be together again.
We will all meet again. To the ones we lost, it is comforting that somewhere in the afterlife, there will no longer be boundaries, sickness, and loss.
For death will come to all of us, And then, at last, we shall rest. For those who did good, and for those who did wrong. The poor and the rich, the unknown and the celebrity.
Rest in love, Olivia Newton-John, you will be hopelessly missed by your family, and fans and by John Travolta, your Danny, your John.
Thank you for reading.
Sources:
What If Friendship, Not Marriage, Was at the Center of Life?
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John Open Up About Their 40-Year Friendship: ‘We Have a Bond’
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