Elvis Presley was offered a movie role in the 1978 classic film, Grease!

Did you know that Elvis Presley was offered a movie role in the 1978 classic film, Grease?  This fun musical film stars Olivia Newton-John as Sandy Olsson and John Travolta as Danny Zuko.

Sandy and Danny had a summer romance at a beach in 1958 and Sandy tells him that she will have to soon return with her family to live in Australia.  Since her family decided to stay in the United States, Sandy and Danny eventually meet up at Rydell High School.

Sandy makes friends with her girl group, the Pink Ladies, while Danny acts cool with his male gang, The T Birds.  Although there is tension among the two gangs, Danny and Sandy overcome all odds to make their romance blossom.

Sandy, Danny, and the gang sing emotional songs about love, heartache, and life in general.  Their popular songs, such as Hopefully Devoted To You, Greased Lightning, Summer Nights, Look At Me I'm Sandra Dee, Beauty School Dropout, and You're The One That I Want, have captivated audiences' hearts around the world.

Grease, the Musical!

Some more interesting Grease trivia facts: 

• John Travolta's sister, Ellen was actually a diner waitress in the film.

• Four of the films songs became top-10 Billboard hits!

• Presley actually died the same day in which Rizzo, the leader of the Pink Ladies (Stockard Channing), was making funny Elvis impersonations in front of her Pink Ladies in 1977.

• The filming of Grease took place at three different Los Angeles high schools, and Grease took 6 million dollars to produce and made 400-500 million dollars worldwide!

• John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John were both 23 and 29 years old in this popular film!

• Olivia Newton-John had difficulty in trusting her acting abilities, so she had requested a screen test with John Travolta, and the rest was history!

• Movie producers had originally wanted to turn Grease into an animated film.

• To make Olivia Newton John popular in the movie, Grease, producers had decided to give her an Australian accent and to change her last name from Dumbroski to Olsson.

• The cast members of Grease had chewed an amazing 100,000 pieces of bubble gum.  Cannot imagine who was responsible for cleaning up the wads of gum.

• Vaselina was the released name of Grease in the countries of Mexico and Venezuela!

• The ending song, You're The One That I Want, was filmed at a traveling carnival.  The carnival was only in town for one day!

• The Rydell High School prom scene took an incredible two weeks to film in downtown Los Angeles.  The temperature on the movie set rose to 116 degrees, prompting several actors to receive treatment for heat-related illnesses.

• The song, Beauty School Dropout, was created after a news segment covered a teenage murderer who actually dropped out of beauty school!

Personal thoughts and reflections:

I have watched Grease many times over the years and it always leaves me in a happy and inspired mood.  There are many themes of love, jealously, sadness, hope, and loyalty embedded in this upbeat film; the choreography is amazing as well as the cars, clothing, diner and high school setting.