Grease is a 1978 American musical romantic comedy film directed by Randal Kleiser (in his feature directorial debut) from a screenplay by Bronté Woodard and an adaptation by co-producer Allan Carr. The movie is based on the 1971 stage musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. The plot follows a greaser, Danny Zuko (John Travolta), and Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John), an Australian transfer student, through their summer romance and its aftermath.
Grease was released in the United States on June 16, 1978, by Paramount Pictures. The film was successful both critically and commercially, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1978 and the highest-grossing musical film at the time. Its soundtrack album ended 1978 as the second-best-selling album of the year in the United States, only behind the soundtrack of the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, which also starred Travolta. In addition, the song from the Grease soundtrack, "Hopelessly Devoted to You" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 51st Academy Awards. The film also received five nominations at the 36th Golden Globe Awards, including for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and two for Best Original Song, for "Grease" and "You're the One that I Want". In 2020, Grease was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
A sequel, Grease 2, was released on June 11, 1982, starring Maxwell Caulfield and Michelle Pfeiffer as a newer class of greasers. Few of the original cast members reprised their roles, and the film was critically panned. In 2023, a short-lived prequel television series, Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies, debuted on Paramount+, lasting for only one season.
Plot
During the summer of 1958, greaser Danny Zuko and straitlaced Australian girl Sandy Olsson fall in love at the beach. As Sandy prepares to return home, she worries that she will never see Danny again, but he comforts her by saying that the summer is "only the beginning" for them.
On the first day of his senior year at Rydell High School, Danny reconnects with the members of his greaser gang the T-Birds: Sonny, Putzie, Doody, and his best friend Kenickie. Sandy arrives at Rydell and is introduced to girls' gang The Pink Ladies—Marty, Jan and leader Betty Rizzo—by mutual friend Frenchy. At lunch, Danny and Sandy each separately describe their summer, unaware of the other's presence until Sandy mentions Danny's name, which the Pink Ladies recognize.
At a pep rally, Sandy, now a cheerleader, flirts with Tom, a football player. Kenickie arrives in "Greased Lightnin, a heavily used car he plans on restoring in order to drag race it at Thunder Road. Rizzo and the Pink Ladies surprise Sandy by reuniting her with a shocked Danny. Sandy is thrilled, but Danny makes fun of her to maintain his tough image, upsetting her. Frenchy invites her to a sleepover with the other Pink Ladies that night to make her feel better.
At the sleepover, Rizzo makes fun of Sandy's good-girl image, and Frenchy announces she is dropping out of Rydell to go to beauty school. The T-Birds crash the party, and Rizzo leaves with Kenickie to have sex in Greased Lightnin' at a nearby make-out spot. While the couple is there, rival greasers Leo and Cha-Cha interrupt them.
Danny motivates the T-Birds to work on the car by saying it will win them both girls and races. Later, he sees Sandy on a date with Tom and tries to apologize for his attitude at the pep rally, but she is unconvinced. Danny tries several sports in order to impress Sandy, eventually succeeding at track and field. Sandy, bored with Tom, agrees to be Danny's date to an upcoming dance at which the television show National Bandstand will do a live broadcast from the Rydell gym. Rizzo and Kenickie break up after a fight. After a disastrous beauty class, Frenchy reluctantly decides to return to Rydell to complete her high school education.
At the dance, Rizzo and Kenickie bring Leo and Cha-Cha as their respective dates out of spite. In a ribald dance contest that ends with the T-Birds mooning the cameras, Danny begins the contest with Sandy before Sonny pushes Sandy off the floor and Cha-Cha cuts in. Danny and Cha-Cha win as Sandy storms off.
To make it up to her, Danny takes Sandy to a drive-in movie and asks her to wear his ring. She accepts, but when he tries to make out with her, she flees the drive-in, leaving Danny hurt. Meanwhile, Rizzo fears that she may be pregnant, and tells Marty. When word reaches Kenickie, he offers to help, but she denies that he is the father.
At Thunder Road, Kenickie is injured when his head collides with his own car door, leaving him concussed. Danny takes his place behind the wheel and beats Leo in the race. Sandy decides to change her image and asks Frenchy for help.
At Rydell's graduation carnival, Rizzo discovers that she is not pregnant, and she and Kenickie get back together. Danny shocks the T-Birds by becoming a letterman, and Sandy shocks everyone with a new leather, "greaser"-style outfit. She and Danny reconcile and the whole gang vows to "always be together". Danny and Sandy drive off into the sky while their friends wave goodbye.
Cast Principal cast Protagonists John Travolta as Danny Zuko Olivia Newton-John as Sandy Olsson
T-Birds Jeff Conaway as Kenickie Barry Pearl as Doody Michael Tucci as Sonny LaTierri Kelly Ward as Putzie
Pink Ladies Stockard Channing as Betty Rizzo Didi Conn as Frenchy Jamie Donnelly as Jan Dinah Manoff as Marty Maraschino
Secondary cast Students Eddie Deezen as Eugene Felsnic Susan Buckner as Patty Simcox Lorenzo Lamas as Tom Chisum Dennis Stewart as Balmudo Annette Charles as "Cha-Cha" DiGregorio
School staff Eve Arden as Principal McGee Dody Goodman as Blanche Hodel Sid Caesar as Coach Calhoun Alice Ghostley as Mrs. Murdock Darrell Zwerling as Mr. Lynch Dick Patterson as Mr. Rudie Fannie Flagg as Nurse Wilkins
Others Joan Blondell as Vi Frankie Avalon as Teen Angel Edd Byrnes as Vince Fontaine Sha Na Na as Johnny Casino & The Gamblers Ellen Travolta as a Frosty Palace
Production The film rights to the musical Grease were originally acquired by producer Steve Krantz in 1974, who planned to make it into an animated feature to be directed by Robert Taylor. Krantz commented, "[A]s a spoof of the 1950's which doesn't take itself too seriously, it is, I'm convinced, a property that lends itself best to the cartoon film form." However, Krantz's option expired after two years, after which producers Robert Stigwood and Allan Carr purchased the rights in order to make the musical into a live-action film.
The director, Randal Kleiser, took numerous liberties with the original source material, most notably moving the setting from an urban Chicago setting (based on William Howard Taft High School), as the original musical had been, to a more suburban locale, reflecting his own teenage years at Radnor High School in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The writer Warren Casey was said to have based the high school on Gorton High School in Yonkers, New York. He had little control over the musical aspects of the film; his choice of theme song, a composition by Charles Fox and Paul Williams, was overruled when Robert Stigwood and Allan Carr commissioned a song from Stigwood's client Barry Gibb at the last minute.
Casting John Travolta had previously worked with Stigwood on Saturday Night Fever, recorded the top-10 hit "Let Her In" in 1976, and appeared as Doody in a touring production of the stage version of Grease. As part of a three-picture deal with Stigwood, Travolta was given the lead role after Henry Winkler (then starring as Arthur "Fonzie" Fonzarelli in Paramount's TV series Happy Days) turned down the role for fear of becoming typecast as a greaser character. (Winkler would later regret the decision.) Director Randal Kleiser had never directed a theatrical feature before this but had directed Travolta in the 1976 telefilm The Boy in the Plastic Bubble; Kleiser helped Travolta maintain focus as he grieved the death of Diana Hyland (his girlfriend at the time and his on-screen mother in Bubble).
Before Newton-John was hired, Allan Carr was considering numerous names such as Carrie Fisher, Ann-Margret, Deborah Raffin, Susan Dey and Marie Osmond for the lead role. Fisher, who had recently finished Star Wars, was ultimately rejected because neither Stigwood nor Carr knew if she could sing. Osmond almost took the role before she realized the extent to which the character transformed into a rebel; she turned it down to instead star in Goin' Coconuts. Carr eventually chose Newton-John after a chance encounter at a soireé hosted by Helen Reddy. Newton-John had done little acting; before this film she had only two film credits, both of which predated her singing breakthrough (1965's Funny Things Happen Down Under and the little-seen 1970 film Toomorrow), and she requested a screen test prior to accepting the role. She thought that she was not going to be cast, for she was 28 years old. She agreed to a reduced asking price in exchange for star billing and the ability to rewrite the script, which included changing her character's origin to an Australian immigrant (to avoid having to simulate an American accent) and making her less passive. In a case of life imitating art, Newton-John's own musical career would undergo a transformation similar to that of the Sandy Olsson character; her next album after Grease, the provocatively titled Totally Hot, featured a much more sexual and pop-oriented approach, with Newton-John appearing on the album cover in all-leather attire and teased hair similar to those her character affects late in Grease.
Lorna Luft (who would later be cast in Grease 2) and Lucie Arnaz both auditioned for the part of Rizzo, but a talent client of Carr, Stockard Channing, was cast, several years after her last major film role and debut in The Fortune. At 33 she was the oldest cast member to play a high school student, and Kleiser made her and the other actors playing students take a "crow's feet test" to see whether they could pass for younger in close-ups. Softer focus was used on some of the older actors' faces. Channing lobbied heavily to keep the climactic song "There Are Worse Things I Could Do" in the score over Carr's objections.
Elvis Presley was considered for the role of The Teen Angel but died before production. Marie Osmond's brother and duet partner Donny Osmond was another potential Teen Angel before Avalon was cast, as was Frankie Valli, who had been given the choice of either singing the theme or appearing as the Teen Angel (he chose the former, believing the theme to be a better song and more likely hit). Fabian was noted as the inspiration for the role in the musical's script notes, but he and Allan Carr had fallen out after Carr's brief attempt at managing Fabian's stage act in 1974, as Carr determined Fabian's talent was limited to headlining a lounge act. Fabian stated in 2025 that he had been offered the role but had to decline it because he was overseas when the scene was to be filmed. The role would revive Avalon's career on the nostalgia circuit, with Valli noting that both Frankies benefited from their appearances despite "Beauty School Dropout" not being released as a single.