How Old Was John Travolta in 'Grease'?

Find out the surprising real-life age of the star portraying a high school teen.

The movie Grease is truly iconic. Starring John Travolta as Danny Zuko and the late Olivia Newton-John as Sandy Olsson, the romantic musical tells the tale of a couple who fall in love on the beach in California one summer before they are torn apart by fate and geography... until they are unexpectedly reunited at Rydell High School.

The young stars became famous overnight, with fans clamoring for information about Travolta and Newton-John. People were particularly interested in finding out how old the two were in real life; after all, they were playing high school students on the big screen.

It turns out fans had good reason to question the ages of the movie's stars. As director Director Randal Kleiser told Vanity Fair in 2016, no one cast in a major role was actually a teen at the time. Kleiser added, "I would get up close to them and see if they had any crow's-feet around their eyes, and that would show they were beyond the surreal age that we had determined would work. High-school kids could not have crow's-feet."

Related: The 20 Most Memorable Quotes from Grease

Stockard Channing, who stars as Rizzo in the film, also told the outlet that Paramount executives took measures to make her look younger, too. Channing was 33 at the time of filming. She said, "[Paramount Pictures executive] Allan [Carr] showed up on the set with a brown pencil and started dotting freckles on my nose so I would look younger. I said, 'I don't look younger! I just look dirtier!'"

Here's a look at just how old Travolta and Newton-John were when they filmed Grease.

How old was John Travolta in Grease?

Travolta was already famous by the time Grease was released, as his breakthrough hit Saturday Night Fever came out in 1977. John Travolta was 23 years old when he filmed the part of 18-year-old Danny Zuko.

How old was Olivia Newton-John in Grease?

Olivia Newton-John's age during the filming of Grease is even more impressive—she actually turned 29 during production. Vanity Fair reported that the movie's cinematographer Bill Butler used a softer lens after Newton-John expressed concern about being six years older than Travolta.

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