Grease

The Cast

CASTING CAN MAKE OR BREAK ANY FILM PROJECT. Sometimes you know an actor is right for the part immediately. Sometimes you think an actor is all wrong and they surprise you in the reading.

Once you choose the actors, 90 percent of directing is in the bag. Then you want to get the best out of them. I’ve found the best way to do that is to help them feel creative and free to make any suggestions. While working on the set, I like to let actors try things—I’ll sometimes even shoot a scene in which they get to experiment, even if I don’t think it will end up in the picture. There’s always a chance their experiment will turn out really great.

Choreographer Pat Birch, me, and producer Allan Carr during a Paramount Studios casting session

John Travolta as DANNY ZUKO

John’s first connection with Grease was when he played Doody in the national road company, with Barry Bostwick playing the role of Danny Zuko. He was already a teen idol when I first worked with him on The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. John was well-known as Vinnie Barbarino, one of the students in the TV comedy Welcome Back, Kotter. He was excited about playing his first leading role, that of a young man with a compromised immune system. I was impressed with how he was able to make the character truthful and show vulnerability. He is soft-spoken but has an inner toughness. On the set John was—as he is now—kind, giving, and loved by his fellow actors. He gets lots of respect.

We worked quickly on The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, shooting it in fourteen days. I cast Diana Hyland to play his mother. Months later, I attended the premiere of Carrie and ran into John sitting with Diana. I was dumbfounded because I’d never had an inkling that they were seeing each other. He was truly in love with her. Tragically, she developed breast cancer and passed away in March 1977. At the Emmys that year, she won the Best Supporting Actress Award, and John took the stage to accept it for her. He held it up and said, “This is for you, Diana.” It was very moving.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: John in character; John and me during rehearsals; John (as Doody) behind Barry Bostwick (playing Danny) during the US national tour of Grease; John as Doody during the US national tour of Grease

We had a good working relationship, so I was thrilled when John requested me as the director for Grease. By the summer of ’77, Saturday Night Fever had not yet been released, but there was a major buzz about it. It was clear it was going to be a hit and transform him into a huge star. Working with John on Grease was a different experience from working with him on our TV movie. He now had an entourage, and this brought a change in attitude in him. Not a bad one, but now he knew he was going to be big. That was also an adjustment for me, because I had been thinking of him as just “John the actor,” and suddenly he was “John the star.” But his youthful energy and combination of sex appeal and warmth hadn’t changed—and that’s what came across when he played Danny Zuko.

Olivia Newton-John as SANDY OLSSON

I first met Olivia Newton-John, who was already a world-famous singer, at a party at singer Helen Reddy’s home. The evening had been especially set up for us to meet her. Allan Carr said she’d be perfect, and I could see her in the role of the sweet and innocent Sandy at the movie’s beginning. It was harder for me to imagine Olivia portraying the wild character at the end of the movie, but I was open-minded. Especially since there was no one anywhere as suited for the role.

We needed a talent who could act as well as sing, someone who could play the “good girl” as well as the black-leather-clad sexpot at the end of the film. Olivia became our first choice to play Sandy. Because of her bad experience on her first movie, she was cautious about acting again. She asked for a screen test. This was unheard of, because normally the studio requests a test to determine whether it wants to hire someone.

If she didn’t feel right about the film or her chemistry with John, she wanted to be able to say no. I understood where she was coming from. Her US film debut, a sci-fi 1970 musical called Toomorrow, had bombed, and I didn’t blame her for being cautious, since her singing career was doing so well. Then she revealed she was concerned about playing a seventeen-year-old. At the time, she was twenty-nine and John was twenty-three. I told her that this was going to be a kind of bigger-than-life, almost surreal high school and that we were casting actors who were in their twenties. That seemed to help.

For her test, we chose the drive-in scene where Danny tries to seduce Sandy. The day of the test, John, the more experienced actor, was aware of her fears and took her under his wing. He joked around with her, treating her like an older brother would. I remembered my directing training and lightly touched her on the shoulder when speaking with her about the scene. This simple gesture can ground an actor and make them feel secure.

BOTTOM: Olivia Newton-John dropping by to watch the shooting of the “Greased Lightnin’” number

Our cinematographer, Bill Butler, developed a ring of light to go around the lens and give Olivia a young look. This soft light from the front of the camera erases slight lines in the face (not that Olivia had many). This technique is often used by photographers when shooting women for magazine covers.

But it became clear during the rehearsal for the test that something was off. Earlier, Allan and Bronte Woodard had rewritten parts of the original play to “improve” the dialogue—and their version wasn’t working. I remembered how Tom Moore’s direction had great comedy beats in the stage version that I had seen. The casting director, Joel Thurm, pulled out a copy of the theatrical script, and John and Olivia began to rehearse with it. Suddenly, we had the scene: the two actors were connecting, and it was quite funny. As John and I knew she would, Olivia easily nailed both the naïveté and the comedy of the character. After the shoot, she was more relaxed, and it seemed that her apprehensions had subsided. But now we needed her to see the test—and decide to do the movie. If she didn’t like what she saw and backed out, we didn’t have a solid replacement who could sing and act.

As she viewed the test, we held our breath. Olivia saw that she looked great, seemed to match John in age, and had great chemistry with him. She agreed to do the picture (and we breathed a sigh of relief). One last tweak to the script transformed Sandy Dumbrowski into an Aussie named Sandy Olsson.

During this casting period we needed a possible backup Sandy in case Olivia didn’t want the role. My former college roommate, George Lucas, was finishing a movie with the daughter of Debbie Reynolds. I knew Carrie Fisher from parties around town but didn’t know if she could be right for the part of Sandy. I called George and asked if he had any footage of her I could see. He said to come down to Samuel Goldwyn Studios, where he was mixing the soundtracks for Star Wars. I entered the mixing stage and watched the screen. It was a battle scene between spaceships, with the action cutting back and forth. “Where’s Carrie?” I asked. A quick cut went by on the screen: Carrie turning her head (with those huge buns) to follow the action of a ship. “That’s her,” George said.

Of course, from that short clip there was zero chance that anyone could tell if she could act, sing, and dance through a musical. I thanked George and left, quite concerned about what we would do if Olivia said no. Suffice to say, we were all thrilled and relieved that Olivia decided to join us and play Sandy.

Working with Olivia on Grease was a great experience. I often tell people that Olivia in person is exactly how you would expect her to be: loving, warm, charming, and beautiful. She has a lot of depth and soul. We developed a close relationship on the set, and I feel she trusted that I was looking out for her during each moment on-screen.

I think if we had used an American as Sandy, it wouldn’t have been as interesting. The choice of changing Sandy to an Australian may have been based on Olivia’s accent, but having Sandy be an outsider in a new country made Olivia’s naïveté believable and added a special element to her portrayal.

And the fact that Olivia had been a singer for so many years also had prepared her for the role—acting is part of being able to interpret the lyrics of a song. In “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” we just kept the camera on her face in one long take so she could perform the way she does in concert.

A Polaroid taken at the screen test. John and Olivia look costumed for the part, but that was just what they happened to wear that day.

The T-BIRDS

Jeff Conaway as KENICKIE

Jeff was constantly coming up with all kinds of ideas during rehearsals and on the set because he was so familiar with the play. He had played Danny Zuko on Broadway for two years, and so it seemed as if he knew every beat of the show.

Those in the cast who hadn’t seen the play would ask Jeff questions about the characters, and he and the other Broadway cast members would fill them in on the background—where some bit had come from or how a certain bit had come alive onstage. During the shoot, my relationship with him developed into that of a kind of big brother or uncle. On his part, there was also a bit of playful rebellion, as if I were the teacher and he was a class cutup.

When his agent told him he was being called to audition for Kenickie, Jeff at first refused, because he viewed the stage production’s Kenickie as a “no-neck monster.” That is overstating it a bit, but the stage version of Kenickie was more dangerous, as if he really would use the lead pipe he was carrying around. Thankfully for us, Jeff decided to audition; his version of Danny Zuko’s best friend was tough, but you got the impression his toughness was an act. Jeff may have been disappointed that he wasn’t playing Danny, but he threw himself into every scene with enthusiasm. He used to say, “I get to be a senior in high school again and do whatever I want to do!” His energy helped keep everything going.

John was his best friend in real life—they’d known each other since they were teenagers—and there was a lot of chemistry between them that comes out in the film. We were all devastated by Jeff’s passing in 2011. Many of us attended his funeral, where his friends the Temptations sang a tribute to him.

Barry Pearl as DOODY

Barry first worked with Pat Birch in 1967 on You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. He became involved with Grease in 1973 when he replaced Michael Lembeck, who broke his ankle onstage in Toronto during the “We Go Together” number. He joined the cast as Sonny and met John Travolta, who was playing Doody. He remained part of the national tour for its last ten months. In our casting session, he auditioned for Doody, singing “Blue Suede Shoes” and improvising a comedy bit that got him the part right there in the room. Barry made the character into a class clown in the vein of the Three Stooges, one of his favorite comedy trios (and mine as well). He was a joy to work with because every minute he was coming up with ways to add comedy beats to his scenes. Pulling out a squirt gun when he sees the rival gang, working out bits with Kelly Ward and Michael Tucci, goofing for the National Bandstand’s live cameras, and many added asides . . . he contributed a lot to the tone of Grease.

Michael Tucci as SONNY

Michael has a long history with the play. He started as an understudy on the national tour and first got a chance to go onstage in Toronto. He played Kenickie for a few performances. He moved to Los Angeles, and Joel Thurm, our casting director, saw Michael in a performance of Hold Me!, a play by Jules Feiffer. After the play, Joel told him to come to Paramount the next day for an audition. He dutifully arrived at Paramount, read and ad-libbed and got everyone laughing, and on the spot he was cast for Sonny.

Kelly Ward as PUTZIE

John and I had worked with Kelly on The Boy in the Plastic Bubble, and Kelly had worked with Pat Birch in a Broadway production of Truckload. It’s hard to believe, because Kelly was great as Putzie, but he hadn’t thought about auditioning for the movie. He was down on his luck and needed cash badly. He begged Pat Birch for a job helping her with the casting sessions, and once hired, tried to make himself as useful as possible. It was the real Hollywood moment when we asked him to read for the part of Putzie. Pat Birch later called him perfect for the part: “naive and horny.”

The PINK LADIES

Stockard Channing as RIZZO

Now one of the great actors of stage and film, Stockard was playing an unworldly secretary in Neil Simon’s movie The Cheap Detective when she read for the part of tough-but-vulnerable Betty Rizzo. Stockard was someone Allan Carr knew very well. He was her manager, and she was always the first choice for Rizzo, the bad girl with the heart of gold. Rizzo’s number, “There Are Worse Things I Could Do,” is one of the best examples of how song and acting can convey emotion. Stockard got across all the secret yearnings of a teenager. She was one of the last principal actors to be cast, but her character is one of the most memorable. One critic compared her to Thelma Ritter, a character actress who would often steal scenes.

In 1994, I hosted an Oscar party for her at my home when she received a Best Actress in a Leading Role nomination for Six Degrees of Separation. The party became one of the many Grease cast reunions we have had over the years.

Jamie Donnelly as JAN

Jamie was in the US premiere of the play The Rocky Horror Show with Tim Curry and Meat Loaf. She then played Jan in the Broadway production of Grease but wasn’t keen on auditioning for Jan in the movie, as she didn’t think she would win the role. Eventually, after hearing that other stage production actors like John and Jeff were in the film, she decided to come in and read. Jamie wanted to branch out and read for other roles. But as she read for part after part—anything but Jan—it was clear to us that no one but Jamie could be Jan.

Jamie liked that the movie version of Jan was a late bloomer, from a sloppy kid who ate all the time to someone who had fallen in love (with Putzie) and was aware of presenting herself in a neater way.

Jamie told me a touching story about a woman who came over to her on the street to thank her one day. “For what?” Jamie asked. The woman had never been able to get her daughter, who had Down syndrome, to brush her teeth. Then her daughter watched Jan do it during Frenchy’s sleepover scene, and she was able to imitate Jan from then on.

Didi Conn as FRENCHY

Didi had already starred in You Light Up My Life when she showed up to audition for the role of Frenchy. She was to read the scene where Frenchy consoles Sandy with “Men are rats. Worse. Fleas on rats,” after Danny has rejected her at the pep rally. At the Paramount gate, she picked up the envelope containing only this scene from the security guard. She was frustrated by how little information she got from it about why she would say those lines to Sandy. She begged the security guard to let her borrow the rest of the script, and he refused but did let her sit on the floor of his booth and read it through.

From the moment Didi read, we stopped looking for Frenchy. Her voice and her mannerisms were perfect. She later became the mistress of ceremonies at our Hollywood Bowl sing-alongs. For the past four decades people recognize her every day, she told me, mainly because of her voice.

Dinah Manoff as MARTY

The Broadway production’s role of Marty was a brassy, Julie Newmar type. Dinah brought out a more vulnerable, down-to-earth side of Marty. After eight callbacks, she felt she’d lost the part because of her dance audition, in which she felt uncomfortable. However, we loved her for the part when she started basing the character on a high school virgin imitating Marilyn Monroe. During the production her hairdo was based on Marilyn and Rita Hayworth. Her costumes were designed similarly.

She comes across with the ultimate teen crush on Edd Byrnes’s character Vince Fontaine at the dance. I love the moment when she stands next to Vince and mugs in a sexy way for the live TV cameras.

When asked about the fifties, Dinah said, “Up the fifties.” She had good reason to feel that way. Her mother, Academy Award winner Lee Grant, and her father, Arnold Manoff, had been called up by the House Un-American Activities committee during that decade. They were blacklisted for years.

Annette Cardona (aka Annette Charles) as CHA CHA DiGREGORIO

Sultry Cha Cha, “the best dancer at St. Bernadette’s—with the worst reputation” wasn’t anything like the character in the play. That character is an overweight girl who shows up at the prom, and Danny doesn’t want to dance with her. For the movie, we made her the girlfriend of the leader of the rival gang, the Scorpions. Part of her audition was to dance with John to see if they would click—they did. Annette went on to teach dance and support the plight of transgender youth for many years. I was deeply saddened when she passed away prematurely in 2011 of lung cancer, although she never smoked.

Dennis Stewart as LEO or “CRATERFACE”

The leader of the Scorpions was a character invented for the movie. Leo’s dialogue and dress come across like something you would hear and see even today: “Get the dude, man.” “We’re racin’ for pinks, punk.” During production, Dennis also worked as a dancer on the other Robert Stigwood movie shooting at the same time, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Steve Ford as TOM CHISUM

Steve Ford, the son of President Gerald Ford, was cast to play Sandy’s boyfriend Tom Chisum. During our rehearsal period on the Paramount soundstage, Pat Birch made Steve dance in the center of the circle to see if he could move. The next day, we heard he had backed out of the movie. We quickly turned to Lorenzo Lamas.

Lorenzo Lamas as TOM CHISUM

The son of Arlene Dahl and Fernando Lamas, Lorenzo’s first brush with film was at the age of ten, when he was in 100 Rifles with his dad. When Steve Ford dropped out of the role, Allan Carr remembered meeting Lorenzo and brought him in. Lorenzo was surprised that he didn’t have any lines to read. But he had the right look and we cast him, although we did dye his hair blond so his look wouldn’t conflict with Danny’s. And he got some lines in, after a fashion, when he mouthed, “Hi . . . how are you,” to Sandy at the pep rally.

Susan Buckner as PATTY SIMCOX

An accomplished dancer and actor, as well as Miss Washington 1971 and a contender for Miss America 1972, Susan was perfect for Goody Two-shoes head cheerleader Patty Simcox. Susan drew inspiration from a girl she went to high school with who drove everyone crazy with her relentless school spirit. She “just loves the first day of school!” Susan nailed Patty.

Eddie Deezen as EUGENE FELSNIC

There is a Eugene in every school. Eddie dove into the part and made the character iconic, so much so that when his character was almost written out of the script, it made it back in. Nowadays Eddie is one of the most sought-after actors during Grease appearances—everyone wants his autograph. Who would have predicted Eugene would go from nerd to superstar?

The GROWN-UPS

Casting director Joel Thurm brought up the instantly popular idea of using famous actors from fifties TV shows as the teachers. Like many other baby boomers, I grew up watching Eve Arden in Our Miss Brooks every week with my family in Rosemont, Pennsylvania. All the actors we cast to play the adults felt as if they were part of my extended family. For me, just meeting these icons from my adolescence was a real trip. Directing them was surreal.

Eve Arden as PRINCIPAL McGEE

It was extremely exciting for me when we cast Eve Arden. She made her Broadway debut in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 and went on to make many movies, often playing the sassy, wisecracking best friend. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress in a supporting role in Mildred Pierce. Eve could not have been easier to work with. When my parents visited the set, she treated them like old friends. Watching this Emmy-winning actor rehearsing scenes with Dody Goodman had me in stitches as the two played off each other and improvised bits.

Dody Goodman as BLANCHE HODEL

Dody was very popular as a regular guest on Jack Paar’s Tonight Show during the fifties. She had a voice that everyone recognized: “like a ‘Tweetie Pie’ cartoon bird strangling on peanut butter.” In the mid-seventies, everyone knew her as Mary Hartman’s wacky mother in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman. She often played a kind of scatterbrain in her roles, but her timing was exquisite—such as in her scenes with Eve Arden as Principal McGee. During the dance contest, Dody stayed in character and constantly improvised bits. One of our roving cameras caught her dancing alone madly, and later gazing up at Johnny Casino lovingly.

Sid Caesar as COACH CALHOUN

In the 1950s, every Saturday our family tuned into Your Show of Shows along with most of America to watch Sid Caesar. Sid said more with one raised eyebrow, one gesture, or one significant pause than other comedians might in a whole dialogue scene. He was actually a replacement. Allan Carr had inexplicably hired Deep Throat porn star Harry Reems to play the high school coach. The studio objected and Allan had to break the news to Harry. He gave him a check for five thousand dollars out of his own account. We went with Sid Caesar and were impressed by his old-school professionalism. Sid never left the set to go to his trailer. He didn’t even sit in one of the director’s chairs that each cast member is provided. He would sit on the floor and chat with the extras, answering any questions, joking and treating everyone with warmth.

Joan Blondell as VI

Joan was the consummate old-school actor. Born into a vaudeville family, she was one of Hollywood’s highest-paid actors during the Depression yet post-Code Hollywood censored some of her best scenes from films like The Public Enemy, in which she served breakfast to her boyfriend in bed (clearly having slept with him, a no-no in Puritan America). She had award-winning roles in theater, TV, and movies well into the 1970s. Playing the confidante with a heart of gold made her just right for Vi, the seen-it-all but kind waitress. When asked if she longed for the old days of the studio system, she said, “Not at all. I’m so happy to be here, and isn’t this song fun?” Her wisecracks made everyone laugh, and she was one classy lady.

Frankie Avalon as the TEEN ANGEL

Unlike most teen idols, Frankie Avalon had extensive training as a musician; before he was discovered as a singer, his trumpet playing was featured on TV’s The Honeymooners and on albums for various bands. In high school I remember listening to him on AM radio sing “Venus,” “Dede Dinah,” and “Bobby Sox to Stockings.” He and Annette Funicello teamed up for a long and successful series of Beach Party movies, cementing his role as a teen icon. I ran into Frankie a few years ago and he told me that in his concerts, of all his songs, the most requested is “Beauty School Dropout.”

Fannie Flagg as NURSE WILKINS

Fannie almost played Principal McGee, but a last-minute casting change shifted her to the Nurse Wilkins role. Even wearing a nurse’s hat and cape, Fannie was instantly recognizable to audiences from her wisecracks on The Jack Benny Show and The Tonight Show. She is probably best known as the writer of her best-selling novel and 1991’s hit film Fried Green Tomatoes.

Alice Ghostley as MRS. MURDOCK

Most baby boomers watching Grease recognized Alice right away as the bungling witch Esmeralda in Bewitched. She made eccentric characters charming and funny. A Tony Award–winning actor, she also appeared in 1962’s To Kill A Mockingbird, playing the neighborhood gossip. Alice had no problem being the strict shop teacher, Mrs. Murdock, dressed in auto mechanic coveralls—and no problem keeping the T-Birds in line.

Darrell Zwerling as MR. LYNCH

Darrell famously played Hollis Mulwray, the unfortunate husband of Faye Dunaway’s character in 1974’s Chinatown, who ends up drowned in a freshwater reservoir under suspicious circumstances. I was happy to have given him a less lethal role as Tod’s high school teacher in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. It was fun to have him back, as Mr. Lynch, one of Rydell High’s teachers.

Dick Patterson as MR. RUDIE

As a teen, I remember seeing Dick in The Absent-Minded Professor. He often appeared on Hollywood Squares and Password, but those in the industry knew he could dance, sing, act, and write. He got a big break on Broadway when he took over for Dick Van Dyke in Bye Bye Birdie and was a classmate of Carol Burnett’s at UCLA, performing with her and even becoming a regular on her TV show. He worked behind the scenes too, writing comedy for Las Vegas headliners like Rich Little. In Grease, we were fortunate to have him playing Mr. Rudie, one of the many clueless grown-ups trying to keep control.

Edd Byrnes as VINCE FONTAINE

As star of TV’s 77 Sunset Strip, Edd was “Kookie,” one of the first teen idols of the initial TV generation. As a teenager I watched the show every week. I thought he was the ultimate cool guy as he traded quips with Roger Smith and Efrem Zimbalist Jr. while parking their cars. (When I first came to Los Angeles as a film student, I went up to the Sunset Strip to see the location. It was next to Dino’s restaurant, which has since been razed.) On the show, when he combed his hair, girls would swoon—and he even had a hit record, “Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb.” He was the perfect actor to play smooth-talking Vince Fontaine and channeled a bit of Dick Clark as he hosted our National Bandstand TV show.

The DANCERS

Instead of using regular Hollywood extras, it was Pat Birch’s idea to use twenty key dancers to populate the school: ten girls and ten boys. She wanted them to be more than just background; they had to be able to portray characters in movement. We held open calls in New York and Los Angeles. At the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on Broadway, Pat chose Barbi Alison, Helena Andreyko, Carol Culver, Dennis Daniels, Antonia Franceschi, Daniel Levans, Mimi Lieber, Sean Moran, Andy Roth, and Richard Weisman. And on a Paramount soundstage, she chose Jennifer Buchanan, Cindy DeVore, Larry Dusich, Deborah Fishman, John Robert Garrett, Sandra Gray, Greg Rosatti, Lou Spadaccini, Judy Susman, and Andy Tennant.

Pat asked each of them to come up with a name and a backstory. Several had been in the Broadway cast and were excited to be part of the movie version. In every scene, she worked out bits of business for them to do that were well thought out and specific. That way, the viewer could recognize these characters and connect with them at the end when they sing “We Go Together.” In the big dance sequences—the contest and the carnival—she assigned each dancer to teach the choreography to the extras around them. Much of the nonstop energy in the film comes from the improvisations of these players in rehearsals that were picked up and choreographed carefully. If you watch these scenes in the movie, you can see every one of those dancers giving their all.