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In the stage version, "Grease Lightning" is Kenickie's song—but Travolta was able to swing it so he could sing it instead.
"I have to be completely honest with you," the actor told Vanity Fair. "I wanted the number. And because I had clout, I could get the number."
Conaway, who died of pneumonia exacerbated by chronic drug abuse in 2011, wasn't particularly happy about it and neither was choreographer Patricia Birch.
"It's Kenickie's goddamned number!" she told the magazine. "I was upset with it, because I thought Jeff needed a number. John was very good doing it, but it should have been Kenickie—it was Kenickie's car!"