Remember “Grease,” that goofy 1978 high-school movie musical with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John? Bainbridge Island resident Dinah Manoff does, because she was there — in a pink jacket.
Manoff, a Tony Award-winning veteran of stage (“I Ought to Be In Pictures” on Broadway), screen (“Ordinary People”) and television (“Soap,” “State of Grace”), was 19 when she was cast in “Grease” as Marty Maraschino, one of the movie’s wisecracking Pink Ladies. Now, 32 years later, she’s remembering the experience anew as the singalong version of “Grease” comes back to theaters, beginning Thursday.
The role, Manoff recalls, came to her as a surprise. Though no stranger to show business (her mother is actress Lee Grant, her father screenwriter Arnold Manoff), she was just getting started in her career — and, she says, couldn’t really sing or dance. “I don’t know why they cast me!” she said, describing the long audition process in an interview last month. “I was sure they wouldn’t.”
Unlike many of the featured roles in “Grease,” Marty does little singing or dancing, so Manoff’s comedic skills helped land her the role. But watch closely during the film’s dance numbers, and you’ll notice Marty’s not exactly front and center. “They were hiding me. I couldn’t really keep up!” Manoff said with a laugh. “I remember [choreographer] Pat Birch just laughing and shaking her head. She’d say, just stand there behind Jamie [Donnelly, who played fellow Pink Lady Jan]. Jamie could dance her butt off!” (Donnelly, she notes, is a friend to this day.)
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Manoff, one of the youngest members of the cast (“If any of us had looked any more innocent, it wouldn’t have worked,” she said of the movie’s campy and occasionally risqué content), fondly recalled spending several days shooting the “Look At Me, I’m Sandra Dee” number with Stockard Channing, Didi Conn, Donnelly and Newton-John. “It was a blast,” she said of the number, set during a slumber party. “We just stayed silly for a couple of days.”
And she remembered the long, long hours of the movie’s big production numbers: “Summer Nights,” “We Go Together,” and the dance-at-the-gym centerpiece — which, she said, took a couple of weeks. “It’s a testament to Randal [Kleiser] the director and to Pat Birch and really to John and Olivia that everything looked so effortless, because it was grueling.”
Manoff had worked with Travolta before, doing a guest spot on “Welcome Back, Kotter” in 1976. But she said that watching the actor, who was 24 and had just finished “Saturday Night Fever,” was one of the biggest thrills of the “Grease” experience.
“He was magical,” she said. “He had a power at that moment in time that was so incandescent and irresistible, sexy and charismatic … When you were around him, you felt it, like a vibration coming off him.” She remembers, midway through the shoot, that Travolta took a group of them to see a “Saturday Night Fever” screening. “We all sat in that movie theater with our mouths hanging open, going, ‘Oh my God, we’re witnessing a real moment here. We’re in the presence of something very big.’ “
Manoff’s now far from Hollywood and Rydell High, having moved to Bainbridge five years ago with her husband and three sons. “We felt like we had reached the end of our L.A. potential,” she said. “We love it here. We’re never going back.” She now teaches acting at Bainbridge Performing Arts and enjoys a calmer life. “I sure don’t miss going out on auditions!”
And though she has few souvenirs from “Grease” (“Didi saved every single memento — she has her Pink Ladies jacket! I have nothing!”), she treasures the memories and loves the new singalong version. “It should have always been a singalong,” she said. “I think it works best in this way, where the audience gets to be in the movie. It’s like ‘Rocky Horror’ — you want to sing when you’re watching this thing anyway!”
While many films leave background dancers unnamed or simply credited as something like ‘background dancer #1’ the dancers in “Grease” were named things like Bart, Bubba, Moose, and Sauce.
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All the dancers were namedCredit: Getty ImagesMarty doesn’t dance once
Apparently, Marty, who is played by actress Dinah Manoff, lacks rhythm and can’t dance – so we don’t see her in any big dance numbers.
The film was almost a cartoon
The film was almost shot solely in animation. But when the producers and directors decided against the idea, the credits were done as a cartoon as a nod to the idea.
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Marty doesn't have a big dance sceneCredit: PhotoshotThere is an ode to Elvis
The singer was referenced in song Look at Me I’m Sandra Dee. The lyrics “Elvis Elvis let me be, keep that pelvis far from me” were added into the song because the legend died the day that the scene was filmed.
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The actors were much older than their characters
While the actors may have been playing high school kids, in real life they were much older.
John Travolta (Danny) was 23, Olivia Newton-John (Sandy) was 28, Stockard Channing (Rizzo) was 33, Jeff Conaway (Kenickie) was 26, Michael Tucci (Sonny) was 31, and Kelly Ward (Putzie) was 20.
Meanwhile Didi Conn (Frenchy) was 25, Jamie Donnelly (Jan) was 30, Barry Pearl (Doody) was 27 and Dinah Manoff (Marty) was 19.
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The cast were much older than their charactersCredit: AlamyThere are blurred out product placements
Originally, Coca-Cola had a product placement deal with the movie, but this then fell through during production. The movie-makers couldn’t take the products out, so they had to blur out all of the Coca-Cola appearances in the film.
Kenickie fancied Sandy
Kenickie actor Jeff Conaway had a major crush on Olivia Newton-John during filming, and weirdly he then went on to marry her sister, Rona.
Jeff Conaway came up with the idea for the awkward hug
Right before the big race, Danny and Kenickie embrace but then quickly comb their hair and act as if it never happened.
It was Jeff Conaway who had the idea to make them act like it didn’t happen, as he insisted two blokes would never have hugged in the 50s.
Sandy’s costume didn’t fit
For ‘bad’ Sandy’s big entrance at the carnival, Olivia Newton-John had to be sewn into those famous trousers.
She said: “They sewed me into those pants every morning for a week.
“Believe me, I had to be very careful about what I ate and drank. It was excruciating… It was 106 degrees on the set for the carnival finale.”
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Olivia needed to be sewn into her trousers everydayCredit: AlamySandy was meant to be American
In the stage version of the musical, Sandy is an American girl with the surname ‘Dumbrowski’. But movie directors decided to make her Australian after Australian native Olivia Newton-John was cast.
Kenickie was seriously injured
During the filming of ‘Greased Lightning’, Jeff Conway was dropped, falling and seriously injuring his back. The injury led to Jeff’s abuse of prescription drugs.
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Jeff Conway, who played Kenickie, was seriously injured while filming Greased LighteningCredit: Getty ImagesRizzo’s “hickeys from Kenickie” were real
Those famous marks weren’t make-up - they were given to the actress by Kenickie actor Jeff Conaway, after he insisted the love bites be real.
The cast got really sick
After the drag racing scene, a lot of cast members got sick because the water where they filmed was stagnant and filled with contaminated bacteria. Ew.