TRIBUTES have been pouring in for Dame Olivia Newton-John, who died on Monday after a long battle with breast cancer.
The British-born singer, who was 73, died “peacefully” at her ranch in Southern California.
Her husband John Easterling said she was surrounded by family and friends.
Dame Olivia is best known for her starring role as Sandy in the 1978 film Grease along with John Travolta, who played Danny Zuko.
Travolta was among the first to pay tribute, saying her “impact was incredible” and signing off as “your Danny”.
“My dearest Olivia, you made all of our lives so much better,” he said. “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.”
Dame Olivia was also a multi-platinum selling artist, with two singles and two albums having earned the certification from the Recording Industry Association of America.
In 1974 she represented the UK in the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton with the song Long Live Love.
She finished fourth in the competition, losing out to Abba, who performed Waterloo.
City councillor Carol Theobald was at The Dome on that historic night.
She said programmes given to audience members featured a scoreboard to rate each of the acts.
She said: “I actually rated Abba to win but I thought Olivia Newton-John, who represented the UK, was certainly a good second, but she came fourth in the end.
“They did win well - they were outstanding. It was a memorable occasion.”
Stockard Channing, who played Betty Rizzo in Grease, said Dame Olivia was “the essence of summer”.
“I don’t know if I’ve known a lovelier human being,” she said. "Her sunniness, her warmth and her grace are what always come to mind when I think of her.”
Dame Olivia’s performance saw her nominated for multiple awards, including two Golden Globes.
She was honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame almost 41 years ago to the day of her death, on August 5, 1981.
The soundtrack to Grease is one of the world’s best-selling albums of recorded music and features the two hit duets from Dame Olivia and Travolta: Summer Nights and You’re The One That I Want.
The latter also ranks as one of the best-selling singles of all time.
Other celebrities paying tribute to Dame Olivia included Kylie Minogue, Peter Andre, Dionne Warwick, James Gunn and Edgar Wright.
Dame Olivia became a prominent breast cancer campaigner after being given the first of three cancer diagnoses in 1992.
Following her initial battle with the disease, she had a partial mastectomy and reconstruction.
She remained cancer-free until a recurrence in 2013, but revealed she had been diagnosed with cancer for the third time in three decades in September 2018.
The singer said she was treating the illness “naturally” and was using cannabis oil made from marijuana her husband grows in California to alleviate the pain.
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