There's something about the passing of that feels like more than just the loss of someone who, by all accounts, was a very nice person. She symbolised an entire era, a whole cultural mood.
Xanadu was the first single I ever owned, bought with my 13th birthday money. The following year she topped the charts with Physical, combining the new craze for fitness with sex and resulting in one of the most jaw-droppingly tasteless music videos ever produced.
But she will, of course, be best remembered for the movie Grease.

When it was released in 1978, I had just started secondary school in . I seem to remember it took a while to reach our local cinema, BBC World News Today but once it did, there was no stopping it.
Despite being a bespectacled swot in frumpy brown loafers (I already had size 7 feet, and the only shoes my mother could find to fit me were, mortifyingly, men's), I suddenly found myself very popular, even with the older kids.
There's something about the passing of Olivia Newton-John (pictured here as the character Sandy in Grease) that feels like more than just the loss of someone who, by all accounts, was a very nice person.

She symbolised an entire era, a whole cultural mood
But Olivia Newton-John will, of course, be best remembered for the movie Grease (pictured here with her co-star John Travolta)
There is no doubt Grease spoke to my generation. The Pink Ladies and the T-Birds are seen here at the malt shop
As the one English girl in an entire school of Grease-mad teenagers, I was the only person capable of deciphering the lyrics to the songs.
Aspiring young Sandys and wannabe Dannys would cluster around me at lunchtime, wanting to know the correct pronunciation of 'Iuarr-da-uan-dat-ai-uant' and the precise meaning of the lyrics to Summer Nights.

I'm not sure I was a lot of help with the latter, since much of the subtext was lost on my 12-year-old self.