Grease star Newton-John dies of cancer

Show business luminaries have been paying tribute to Olivia Newton-John – best known for playing Sandy in Grease, one of the most successful film musicals ever made – who has died from cancer.

The British-born Australian singer and actress was 73.

Her Grease co-star John Travolta said she ‘made all of our lives so much better’, the BBC reports.

An actress and musician, Newton-John achieved commercial success as a country singer and sold millions of records globally. But it was her role as high school student Sandy in the film Grease that catapulted her to worldwide fame.

The musical was the biggest box-office hit of 1978.

Newton-John was born in Cambridge, UK on 26 September 1948.

Her father had been a British spy during World War Two. Her mother was the daughter of the German Nobel laureate, Max Born, and had fled with her family when the Nazis came to power in 1933.

The family moved to Australia in 1954, where she was raised.

[Image: John Mathew Smith & https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75898487]