Olivia (23 page)

As if to further enhance such a romantic scene, they headed down to the beach hand in hand and then, arm in arm, they strolled along the shore, pausing for more kisses, as the Pacific rollers thundered in towards the shore. Together they watched the sun drop like a penny into the pocket of the far horizon and then the date ended with Olivia getting back into her Mercedes and Matt climbing into his battered old Saab as they headed back to their respective beds on different sides of town - Olivia to the luxurious comfort and grandeur of her suite at the Beverly Wilshire hotel, sited at one of the world’s most famous intersections, Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard, and Matt to his room barely big enough in which to swing a cat.

The following day they greeted each other on the film set with knowing, but discreet, smiles. Inevitably their working relationship had changed. Suddenly they were closer, the chance to dance together more enticing, the touches more exciting. And what had once seemed like straightforward and innocent dance routines now seemed charged with sensuality and excitement. ‘Once we went hiking together, well . . . love began to take its course,’ said Matt. ‘Livvy knew how to make her feelings known all right.’

But, although not yet lovers, neither found it easy to take on board that they had gone beyond the point of being simply friends and working partners. Matt remembered:

 

Hopping into bed with a man she had only just started dating was never Olivia’s style of behaviour, however much she might have been attracted to Matt. She also wanted to be sure that this good-looking young dancer working on his first film was not just looking for an on-location fling for the duration of the shoot. Such liaisons are commonplace in the world of movie-making, but Olivia wanted a proper courtship while she got to know Matt a great deal better.

As the days went by, it became obvious to them both that they were falling for each other, and the first time they made love was at the Beverly Wilshire. Matt carefully slipped quietly into the hotel a few minutes after Olivia to avoid any suspicion that they might be an item. He made his way to Olivia’s suite and they immediately fell passionately into each other’s arms.

It was a clandestine routine they kept up for months without detection, and on set they acted as if they continued to be nothing more than good friends who were enjoying a fruitful, professional working relationship. Only the director Robert Greenwald was in on the secret that Olivia and Matt were lovers and he loyally maintained the discretion they sought. He was naturally happy for them both - there was nothing a director liked better than to make a movie with a leading lady who was happy in her personal life. And there was nothing like a passionate new love affair with a sexy young man to ensure an actress turned up on a film set each morning with a smile on her face and feeling good about herself.

Preserving such secrecy was far from easy for the couple. They were longing to shout their love for each other to the world. But they had a film to complete first and if, for some reason, their affair failed to last until the movie was completed, news of their intimate liaison could have proved a major embarrassment for Olivia - especially as Lee Kramer was executive producer of
Xanadu
.

‘I was paranoid about the age difference at first, very self-conscious and embarrassed,’ Olivia has conceded. In her circle of friends she knew several women who had happily taken much younger lovers but somehow she could never quite imagine herself in a similar position. ‘I used to tease my older sister about her younger boyfriends,’ said Olivia, ‘and now I was dating a much younger man.’

Olivia dreaded what the tabloids would make of her affair if they found out. Given her prim and proper public image, the newspapers would have had a field day. ‘Younger men with older women weren’t so common then,’ she has pointed out, ‘and, of course, I always wanted to do the right thing.’

Matt understood the need to keep their relationship under wraps but lamented: ‘It was very hard not being able to go out and have fun, or go out to dinner together.’

Quite apart from the problem of trying to keep the lid on her affair with Matt, the making of
Xanadu
proved to be a far from smooth experience for Olivia. She had the misfortune to fall and fracture her coccyx during a roller-skating sequence for the song ‘Suddenly’. Gamely she put up with the severe pain and in true showbiz fashion, she resolved that the show must go on.

Another major obstacle, according to Olivia, was that the script was unfinished when filming began and confusingly it was being rewritten as production went along. This, in itself, is not uncommon -
Gladiator
, for example, consisted of just thirty-five pages of script when filming began on what turned out to be a multi-Oscar-winning epic. Director Robert Greenwald clarified Olivia’s complaint about the problems of
Xanadu
’s script being rewritten on the hoof when he gave an interview to
Entertainment Weekly
twenty-seven years later. He said: ‘I wish it
was
being rewritten on the hoof. It was being written on the hoof! In my enthusiasm for the idea of doing a musical, I signed on before there was really any kind of script.’ Olivia had done exactly the same. She had taken on the project on the strength of a twenty-page treatment.

Kenny Ortega, one of the film’s choreographers, explained just what difficulties this presented: ‘You were not quite sure why you were doing what you were doing.’ Ortega, who went on to mastermind the dance scenes in the smash-hit movie
Dirty Dancing
before directing Disney’s hugely successful TV movie
High School Musical
, added ruefully: ‘You know, it’s kinda nice knowing what takes you into a musical number and why you’re coming out of it.’

The script was not the only thing undergoing a major change as filming progressed.
Xanadu
was originally conceived as a straight-on roller-disco movie, but the imminent release of two quickie roller-disco rival films,
Skatetown USA
and
Roller Boogie
, prompted a major rethink and the introduction of a blending of 1940s and 1980s styles for
Xanadu
. For Matt, at least, this was a bonus, as there would now be an additional glimpse of him on screen playing the clarinet in the old-time swing orchestra in a flashback scene as young Danny Maguire.

Along with the changes, the original $4million budget rose accordingly. The vast two-storey set of the
Xanadu
club alone cost $1million and took almost three months to build in Studio 4 of the Hollywood General Studios. The final
Xanadu
budget ended up at around $13million as Joel Silver developed the project.

Throughout all the shenanigans, Gene Kelly looked on with some bemusement. It was hardly the way they went about making musicals in the golden age of Hollywood, the sixty-eight-year-old actor wearily confided to friends.

The legendary dancer had taken his role in the movie partly because filming was just a short drive from his home in Beverly Hills, which meant he could remain close to his family throughout. He had originally served notice that he would not ‘touch a toe’, as he put it, for
Xanadu
but he was persuaded to change his mind and feature in dance sequences. The legions of devoted Gene Kelly fans were not slow to note that his
Xanadu
character Danny Maguire bore the same name as the character he played in the movie
Cover Girl
opposite Rita Hayworth in 1944 - about the same time as the Danny Maguire of
Xanadu
was supposedly at his peak.

Xanadu
’s story opens in southern California where Sonny Malone, played by Michael Beck, is a struggling young artist who works for a record company painting large versions of album covers to be used as promotional placards and posters outside record stores. Frustrated by what he sees as a waste of his creative talents and unappreciated by his overbearing boss, Sonny’s life changes when he is handed an album by a band called The Nine Sisters, which has on its cover a beautiful blonde passing in front of an art deco auditorium. Sonny at once realises that the girl on the cover is the same as the one who had collided with him on roller-skates earlier that day, planted a kiss on his lips then skated away.

Obsessed with finding her, Sonny bumps into her twice more the same day, once while she roller-skates along the pathway at Venice beach, and once at the auditorium. But all he discovers from her is that her name is Kira. Unbeknown to him, Kira is one of nine beautiful muses who literally spring to life from a local mural in town near the beach.

Sonny’s coincidental meetings convince him that he and Kira are being set up, and shortly afterwards, while strolling along a California beach, he gets talking to an ageing former band leader and jazz musician-turned-construction-magnate named Danny McGuire, played by Gene Kelly. While nostalgically recalling a club he opened back in 1945, it transpires Danny had a relationship many years before with a girl who eerily resembled Kira.

During their conversation, the two men find they both share a love of the arts and strike up a friendship. Kira then encourages them to team up to fulfil their respective dreams by opening a nightclub at the old auditorium featured on the album cover by The Nine Sisters.

At the venue, Sonny once again meets up with the mysterious Kira and romance is in the air. But there is a problem when they begin to fall for each other because Kira is no mortal beauty - she is Terpsichore, the Muse of Dance, one of the nine daughters of Zeus. Any romantic feelings she might have for Sonny transgress immortal law. But once the club is a spectacular success, love triumphs when Kira talks her father Zeus into making her a human being, free of all of her muse responsibilities.

The trailers for
Xanadu
seemed enticing enough, promising audiences it would be ‘the most dazzling romantic musical comedy in years’. It purported to be a movie with something for everyone: it had a love story, a strong musical score, a cartoon sequence when Kira and Sonny turn into fish to pronounce their love, 1940s-style music for the mums and dads, rock music for the teens, some energetic dances on wheels and some Busby Berkeley-style special effects.

‘This musical fantasy appealed to me,’ Olivia explained to one interviewer. ‘I’m concerned and saddened by conditions in the world now, and I hope that seeing
Xanadu
will provide pleasure and a chance for people to get away from their problems. If only for a little while.’

 

 

Xanadu
was released in August 1980 backed by a lavish marketing campaign that included specially themed
Xanadu
boutiques created in department stores where customers could buy copies of the film’s costumes. Encouragingly for everyone connected with
Xanadu
, prior to the film’s release Olivia had already taken John Farrar’s song ‘Magic’ from the movie to the top of the US charts, beating off stiff competition from Billy Joel’s ‘It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me’ and Elton John’s ‘Little Jeannie’. That was no mean feat.

‘Magic’ debuted on Billboard’s Hot 100 on 24 May 1980 and went to number one in the singles chart ten weeks later, staying there for four weeks. The hit record contributed an important three months of promotion for the movie.

For Olivia, her muse-like face prominently displayed on the promotional posters and her name taking pride of billing in front of Gene Kelly’s, one of Hollywood’s true greats, it was generally an anxious time. ‘Open your eyes and hear the magic’ was
Xanadu
’s promotional catchline. ‘A Fantasy, A Musical, A Place Where Dreams Come True.’ But by the time the marketing campaign was in full swing, Olivia must have had an early inkling that
Xanadu
was not going to make her dreams of fully fledged movie stardom come true.

When asked about the prospects of success for the movie, she wisely focused on the music and added: ‘We hope the songs will be the songs of the eighties. They’re kind of an ethereal music, written for the character I play. It’s a new style for me, which I like. I try to grow each year.’ But she could not hide her fears for the film’s success. ‘My stomach is in my mouth,’ she added. As it turned out, Olivia had every reason to be apprehensive.

On 25 July, two weeks before its release,
Xanadu
was given an important promotional showcase on TV when Olivia hosted
The Midnight Special
show and much of the airtime was devoted to the movie. But no amount of promotion was able to prevent the critics from slaughtering the film when it was released. While no one connected with
Xanadu
was promising it was a movie to rival
Singin’ In The Rain
, they were not prepared for the savagery of the reviews.

Variety
, the Bible of the entertainment industry, called it ‘Truly stupendously bad’, and likened Olivia, outlined on screen in special-effect ethereal fluorescent glow, to a ‘roller-skating light bulb’.
Esquire
magazine said: ‘In a word, Xana-don’t.’
Time
magazine presented its review of the film under the headline, ‘Oh, shut up, Muse!’

When
Xanadu
reached England, the verdict from the critics was much the same. They too panned it and Felix Barker, veteran critic of the
London Evening News
, went so far as to describe it as: ‘The most dreadful, tasteless movie of the decade. Indeed, probably of all time.’

Even Michael Cotton of The Tubes, a pop group who had been given an early break by their inclusion in the movie as an up-and-coming rock band, looked back and described the film like this: ‘It was just a train wreck.’ Cotton, who featured with The Tubes in a sequence where Danny and Sonny are envisaging what kind of music their club should present, did, however, qualify his verdict by adding that it was ‘a big, giant, colourful train wreck’.