12 Crazy, Creepy Things You Never Knew About the Movie ‘Grease’

Rizzo's hickeys in the movie were real--and Jeff Conaway, who played Kenickie, gave them to her.

This is the movie when Conaway, who was prescribed painkillers after he fell during filming, first developed his well-known drug problem. He died of his addictions in 2011.

Two left feet? Dinah Manoff, who played Marty, couldn't dance at all, so they left her character out of all the big dance numbers.

Annette Charles, who played Cha Cha, suffered from an ectopic pregnancy during filming. After taping the drag race scene, she had emergency surgery that night.

Olivia Newton-John's leather pants in the carnival scene were so tight that she had to be sewn in and ripped out of them at the start and end of each day of filming.

Actress Jamie Donnelly, who played Jan, had noticeably gray hair at the time of filming (she was 30 years old) and had to dye her hair to look a lot younger.

Elvis was offered the part of the Teen Angel, but he turned it down. Frankie Avalon later stepped into the featured role.

Elvis does get a mention in the movie, though--the nod to him in the song "Sandra Dee" was added at the last minute on the day that Elvis died (August 16, 1977).

"Greased Lightning" was supposed to be Kenickie's big scene, but John Travolta asked the director to make it his song instead. Actor Jeff Conaway first complained bitterly, then relented.

Fake out! The carnival scene on the last day of school was filmed at a real carnival that closed before the actors were done, so set designers had to recreate some of the carnival's features.

Though Grease was the top-grossing movie of 1978, it received only one Oscar nod for the song "Hopelessly Devoted to You"--a song that was randomly added long after filming wrapped.

Actress Carrie Fisher was originally up for the role of high-schooler Sandy, which later went to Olivia Newton-John (who was 28 at the time!).