Xanadu is a 1980 American musical fantasy film written by Richard Christian Danus and Marc Reid Rubel and directed by Robert Greenwald. The film stars Olivia Newton-John, Michael Beck and Gene Kelly in his final film role. It features music by Newton-John, Electric Light Orchestra, Cliff Richard and the Tubes. The title is a reference to the nightclub in the film, which takes its name from Xanadu, the summer capital of Kublai Khan's Yuan Dynasty in China. The city appears in Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, an 1816 poem quoted in the film.
Theatrical release poster
Pan-Pacific Auditorium transformed into "Xanadu" via special effects.
Dame Olivia Newton-John was a British and Australian singer and actress. She was a four-time Grammy Award winner whose music career included fifteen top-ten singles, including five number-one singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and two number-one albums on the Billboard 200: If You Love Me, Let Me Know (1974) and Have You Never Been Mellow (1975). Eleven of her singles and fourteen of her albums have been certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Newton-John in 2012
Cashbox advertisement, 15 May 1971
From left to right: Dionne Warwick, Don Kirshner, Helen Reddy, and Newton-John in 1974
Newton-John in 1978