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John Travolta- Acclaimed Actor of His Generation

I never dreamed of playing those kind of parts! I knew I could, hut I didn’t know they would be in my future. So I don’t think you can put the curtain down on yourself
—JOHN TRAVOLTA, ON THE ROLES HE RECEIVED AITHRHIS 1994 COMEBACK IN PULP FICTION

For many years during the 1980s and early 1990s, it seemed to most Hollywood observers that the star of the wildly successful 1977 hit Saturday Night Fever had long since reached the pinnacle of his career. But John Travolta never gave up on himself. He fought his way back to success with a string of smash hits and today is one of the most acclaimed and beloved actors of his generation. Born on February 18, 1954, in Englewood, New Jersey, John Travolta was the youngest of six children in an entertainment-oriented family. His father, Salvatore, was a former semipro football player and co-owner of a tire shop. His mother, Helen, was a high-school drama teacher and had been a member of a radio singing group called the Sunshine Sisters.
All except one of John’s older siblings—Ellen, Sammy, Annie, Joey, and Margaret—eventually went into show business, and John himself joined an actors’ group when he was twelve years old. Before long he had roles in community theater plays and dinner theater musicals—and even took tap-dancing lessons from Fred Kelly, the brother of famed Hollywood entertainer Gene Kelly. Impatient to launch his career, John dropped out of school at sixteen and moved to New York City, where he made his professional debut in the off-Broadway play Rain. He followed with a minor role in rhe touring company of Grease, and in 1973 he costarred in rhe Broadway musical Over Here!with the famed Andrews Sisters. He had a bit part in the film 7′heDevil Rain before being cast as Vinnie Barbarino in the TV comedy series Welcome Back, Kotter in 1975. Travolta’s role as a handsome, slow-witted high-school student turned him into an overnight sensation; his new fame also earned him roles in the 1976 movies The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (for TV) and Carrie. He recorded three pop music albums with minor success and had a hit single, “Let Her In.”
Travolta’s mother in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble was played by actress Diana Hyland. The stage and television actress had earned an Emmy nomination for an Alcoa Premiere drama starring Robert Redfbrd, and had made guest appearances on numerous TV series, including Dr. Kildare and Twilight Zone. Hyland had signed on to play Dick Van Patten’s wife in the new series Eight Is Enough when she met Travolta; they fell in love during production, despite a seventeen-year age gap. Soon after, however, Hyiatid was diagnosed with cancer; in March 1977 she died in Travolta’s arms.
Travolta was devastated, but he had little private time to grieve. Shortly after Hyland’s death his first major movie, Saturday Night Fever, was released. The film was a blockbuster. Travolta got his first Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of cocky, white-suited Tony Manero. The character became a late-1970s icon, and the film’s sound track fueled a disco craze.
The following year, Travolta costarred in the film version of Grease, which was an even bigger box-office success than Saturday Night Fever. By now he was making only occasional appearances on Welcome Back, Kotter, and he seemed poised for superstardom—buc a series of poor film choices ultimately derailed his career. The 1978 movie Moment by Moment, costatring Travolta and LilyTomlin, was a disastrous failure. During the 1980s he turned down plum roles in American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman (both were snapped up by Richard Gere). The 1980 movie Urban Cowboy was a great success, and he earned critical praise for Blowout (1981), although audiences were unenthusiastic. Travolta took another misstep by reprising the role of Tony Manero in the 1983 sequel Staying Alive. It was a box-office disappointment, as was his next film, ‘two of a Kind (1983). By the time he appeared in the failed Perfect in 1985, critics were dismissing him as a has-been.
But the actor refused to give in to doomsaycrs. In 1989 he costarred with Kirstie Alley m a low-budget, comedy called Look Who’s Talking and ended up with his first smash hit in more than a decade. The movie launched two sequels, Look Who’s Talking Too (1990) and Look Who’s Talking Now (1993). But Hollywood pundits pointed to Travolta’s two 1991 failures, Eyes of an Angel and Shout, as proof that the actor’s star had once again sunk below the horizon.
John Travolta proved them spectacularly wtong. In 1994 he staged a decisive comeback in the crime film Pulp fiction. Director and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino had written the character of Vincent Vega specifically for Travolta; audiences and critics were stunned and delighted by the unconventional portrayal. Travolta received a second Academy Award nomination, and within two years his fee soared from $140,000 (for Pulp Fiction) to $20 million. He remains deeply grateful to Tarantino for giving him a chance to renew his career. Travolta calls the director one of “the best guardian angels that the planet has to offer.”
Now among the hottest actors in America, John cemented his position by delivering a long string of hits. He earned a Golden Globe Award for the 1995 movie Get Shorty, an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel; in 1996 he starred in the action thriller Broken Arrow, was the leading man in the touching Phenomenon, and played a not-so-angelic angel in Michael. In 1997 he costarred with Nicholas Cage in the darkly funny Face/Off. In 1998 he was a Bill Clinton-like political candidate in Primary Colors and the headstrong real-life lawyer Jan Schlichtmann mA Civil Action. He followed these hits with the moderately successful The General’s Daughter (1999).
Travolta’s star lost a bit of luster with the 2000 failure Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000. Before it was even released, the actor drew criticism for the movie, based on a novel by L. Ron Hubbard, who founded the religious organization Scientology in 1954. Some suggested that because Travolta was a Scientologist (he has been a member since 1972), the film would be nothing more than a propaganda vehicle. Travolta insisted that he made the movie for pure fun:

“Fortunately, there [arej a lot of literate people in the world who know the difference between science fiction and philosophy,"

he said,

"and this [movie] clearly separates the two.”

Travolta returned to top form in 2001 with Domestic Disturbance and Stvordfish, in which he starred opposite Halle Berry. The movie Basic will be released in 2003.
John married actress Kelly Preston in September 1991; the following year they had a son, Jett, and in 2000 they had a daughter, Ella Bleu. Travolta and Preston named their son after John’s love for flying—when not working, he’s often piloting his private jet. John also wrote a children’s book about aviation, Propeller One-Way Night Coach: A Fable for All Ages (1997). In April 2002 Rob Morrow (of TV’s Northern Exposure) began directing an IMAX film based on the book. The movie, mostly animated, will feature Travolta in live-action scenes and in the narration.

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