Olivia Newton-John is well-known to millions of imagination-deprived teenage girls as Sandy from Grease. But pikey-love don't pay the bills, and so Olivia Newton-John has needed to go to brand new lengths to try and get her hands on some cash.
Olivia Newton-John has decided to do this by suing Universal Music Group Ltd for $1 million that she says she's owed in unpaid royalties for the Grease soundtrack. And Universal is playing hard-ball with Olivia Newton-John in response, saying that it expects the case to be thrown out quickly. Now, we're no legal experts, but we expect that Olivia Newton-John and Universal Music will probably turn up in court and go together like ramma lamma lamma ka dingity ding da dong shoo bop shoo wadda wadda yippity boom da boom chang chang changity chang shoo bop dip da dip da dip do wop da dooby do boogy boogy boogy boogy shooby sho wap sho wap. Or fucking something.
For a film that's basically about a 30-year-old woman pretending to be a schoolgirl in an attempt to get into John Travolta's over-sized knickers, Grease is an enduringly popular musical. The most popular musical ever, in fact, according to some Welsh people that the British Theatre Guide asked outside a sporting venue last year. And, despite getting played to death at every single wedding reception and karaoke night since 1978 – people are still buying the Grease soundtrack in droves. And Olivia Newton-John wants in, dammit.
Olivia Newton-John is pulling what's known as a Yoko Ono – she's suing a record company for unpaid royalties. But whereas Yoko Ono is suing EMI for $10 million royalties from one of the world's greatest songwriters, Olivia Newton-John is just chasing Universal for a cheeky million because she sang a song in a flying car once, as People reports:
Newton-John's attorney, John Mason, told the Associated Press that the company paid the Australian actress-singer, 58, some royalties, but failed to make other contractual payments. The breach-of-contract suit filed Friday in Los Angeles County Superior Court alleges that, per a recent audit, Universal owes more than $1 million to Newton-John's company, ON-J Productions, Ltd. In a statement Tuesday, Universal said, "The lawsuit is without merit and, at the appropriate time, we expect that the court will dismiss it."
Of course, Universal could be wrong, and it might have to dish out the million dollars to Olivia Newton-John. Unless it fakes its own death to avoid paying and ends up hiding out in Mexico, as some suggest Olivia Newton-John's boyfriend Patrick McDermott did last year. But we'll just have to see what the court decides.
Funny, we thought that Olivia Newton-John would have made plenty enough royalties from her other albums, like Olivia Newton-John's Greatest Hits, Olivia Newton-John's Greatest Hits Vol 2, Back To Basics: The Essential Collection, Magic: The Very Best Of Olivia Newton-John, Olivia Newton John: The Definitive Collection, Olivia: Best Of ONJ and Olivia Newton John Gold.
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