Random Horror Stories From Behind Scenes Of Greas (12 items)

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  (#9) John Travolta Was Mad He Didn't Get His Close Up During The Drive-In Scene

  After Saturday Night Fever, Grease made John Travolta legendary. The two back-to-back hits helped him sustain a life-long career, but that doesn't mean it was enough to quell his rising ego. Apparently, the young actor was pretty miffed that he didn't get his close-up at the end of the drive-in scene.

  According to Randal Kleiser, Travolta was asked to sit on a swing for a wider shot while the hot dog animation played on the screen behind him. He wasn't having it at all.

  "John says, 'Well, aren't we gonna do a close-up?' And I said, 'No, no, that was great.' He was a little pissed off, because at the end of the number, he wanted to have a close-up. But because the bun worked so well ... I said no," Kleiser admitted to Bustle. Luckily for Travolta, there were plenty of other close ups to be had.
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  (#10) Jeff Conaway Became Addicted To Pain Killers After Falling During The "Grease Lightning" Scene

  Jeff Conaway rose to fame in 1978 after playing Kenickie in Grease. Though he was known for his talent, he was also known for his drug and alcohol addiction. Apparently, this addiction actually started on set.

  Conaway is rumored to have injured his back after being dropped by another cast member during the "Greased Lightning" scene. He was prescribed painkillers to help him get through the production, but developed a lifelong addiction. Conaway eventually succumbed to his addiction in 2011 when he was 60 years old.
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  (#7) Those Blurred-Out Pictures In The Frosty Palace Almost Caused A Major Reshoot

  In the scene where Sandy is on a date with a jock at the Frosty Palace, you may notice a blurred picture behind her. This turned out to be a major oops that almost cost the production a good chunk of change.

  The picture behind Sandy is a Coca-Cola advertisement, but Pepsi had already made a product-placement deal with Grease producer Allan Carr. When Carr saw the Frosty Palace scene, he insisted that Randal Kleiser reshoot it with Pepsi products. This proved to be pretty costly and time-consuming, so they settled on blurring out the Coca-Cola trademarks instead and crossed their fingers that Pepsi didn't complain. Despite their efforts, they missed a red cooler which bore the competitor's logo.

  "We just had to hope that Pepsi wouldn't complain. They didn't," Kleiser said.
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  (#4) Rizzo's Hickeys From Kenickie Were The Real Deal

  Rizzo was at the cutting edge of '50s fashion. She set herself apart with blue jeans instead of frothy poodle skirts, but she was more than just sartorially risqué. Stockard Channing, the actress behind the character, admitted that all of the hickeys she complained about in the film were real. Apparently, Jeff Conway, the actor behind Kenickie, insisted on giving her the genuine love bites himself.

  Thanks to the real-life hickeys, Channing definitely got well-acquainted with some good concealer on set!
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  (#5) The Grease Cast Tormented Jack Nicholson And Warren Beatty

  Grease is a musical, so it's definitely not short on singing and dancing. This proved to be quite a problem for Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty, whose offices were across from Stage 24 where the cast would frequently play dancing and singing games.

  "They were yelling at us to shut up, because they were trying to write, and we were making so much noise down here," Randal Kleiser, Grease's director, told Bustle.

  If you were forced to listen to "Greased Lightning" a hundred times a day while you were trying to work, you'd probably be a bit cranky, too.
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  (#11) Randal Kleiser Butted Heads With A Bee Gee Over The Theme Song

  Randal Kleiser was set with the Grease theme song. The original opening credits had a '50s song set to an animation filled with '50s references. It all made sense... but it was scrapped. Instead, Bee Gees co-founder Barry Gibb was brought in to make the new theme, but butted heads with Kleiser in the process.

  "I listened to the lyrics and they didn't seem right for the movie," he told Bustle of Gibb's theme song. "They seemed a little dark. So I asked if Barry wouldn't mind changing the lyrics to make them a little lighter ... his solution was, 'Why don't you shoot a serious scene?' Well, we didn't shoot a serious scene and slapped the song on anyhow, and no one ever noticed that the lyrics were totally wrong for the movie. They were distracted by the animation. It's good that I lost that creative choice, because it was a giant hit. I would flip on the radio and hear the song at every station."

  Even though Kleiser hated the song, it's hard to deny it works despite the darker lyrical content.

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