Biography
Travolta was born in Englewood, New Jersey, the son of Salvatore Travolta (an Italian American semi-professional football player turned tire salesman) and Helen Cecilia Burke (an Irish American actress and singer who had appeared in radio vocal group The Sunshine Sisters, and acted and directed before becoming a high school drama teacher).
Travolta then moved to New York City to get a job as a performer. He landed roles in the touring company of Grease and on Broadway in Over Here!. Travolta also cut singles for a local record company, but the songs were quickly forgotten. But eventually, he moved to Los Angeles, California to further his career in show business.
Travolta gained his first major movie role as Billy Nolan, a sadistic classmate who taunted Sissy Spacek's Carrie White in the horror film Carrie (1976). Around the same time he landed his star-making role as Vinnie Barbarino in the TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975 – 1979) in which his real-life sister Ellen Travolta, now married to actor Jack Bannon, also occasionally appeared (as Arnold Horshack's mother).
Around this time he also had a hit single called "Let Her In", peaking at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. His most memorable roles came as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever (1977) and as Danny Zuko in Grease (1978) at the height of the disco era. He performed several of the songs on the Grease soundtrack album, that eventually went on to sell more than 10 million copies.
After the hit musical came a string of flops that sidelined his acting career into forgettable fare. It wasn't until he played Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino's cult hit Pulp Fiction (1994), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, that his career was revived. The movie shifted him back onto the A-list, and he was inundated with offers. Ironically, before Travolta took the role, he had first visited Tarantino who was living in a ramshackle apartment in Los Angeles, the same apartment that Travolta had been living in when he got his start. Among other notable roles following Tarantino's film include a movie buff loan shark in Get Shorty (1995), a role Travolta reprised in Be Cool (2005), a traumatized father in Face/Off (1997), a desperate attorney in A Civil Action (1998) and a military detective in The General's Daughter (1999).
Travolta dancing with Princess Diana at a White House dinner on 9 November 1985
Travolta also played a lead role in the panned Battlefield Earth (2000) (which is based on a work of pulp fiction by L. Ron Hubbard), in which he plays the leader of a group of aliens that enslave humanity on a bleak future Earth. The film received almost universally negative reviews and did poorly at the box office. Travolta, who is a Scientologist (converted 1975) and idolizes the late L. Ron Hubbard, had hoped that the film would be well-received and be the first in a series of Hubbard film adaptations. Contrary to these expectations the film was poorly received and won a Razzie Award for Worst Film of the Year at the 2000 awards.
His affiliation with Scientology has caused some controversy. In 1998 he was named in a lawsuit involving a former member who claimed that he was promised that his homosexuality could be cured. The lawsuit alleged that the organization frequently cited Travolta as proof that the organization could in fact change a person's sexual orientation. A lawyer for Travolta replied, "This looks like complete hogwash. Travolta is a happily married man, which proves he isn't gay".
Questions have also been raised regarding what kind of agreements were made between Travolta and then President Bill Clinton, regarding how Travolta would portray Clinton in the movie Primary Colors and whether Clinton would pressure the German government to remove its ban on Scientology. Travolta was quoted about the issue in May 1998 issue of George magazine:
The next day, I met with Clinton. He told me: "Your program sounds great. More than that, I'd really love to help you with your issue over in Germany with Scientology." I was waiting for the seduction that I had heard so much about. I thought, "Well, how could he ever seduce me?" And after we talked, I thought, "Bingo!" He did it. Scientology is the one issue that really matters to me.
In another interview [2], Travolta admitted that his portrayal of Clinton was much more kind than that in the book Primary Colors. The next year, in November 1998, Clinton sent Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to urge German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel to grant Scientology the status of a registered religion (see [3], [4]).
Travolta is married to fellow Scientologist and actress Kelly Preston and is the father of two children, Jett and Ella Bleu. Previously he was involved with actress Diana Hyland, who died of breast cancer (reportedly in Travolta's arms) in 1977. Other members of the Travolta family involved in the entertainment industry include Ellen Travolta and husband Jack Bannon, Joey Travolta, Rikki Lee Travolta, Margaret Travolta, Rachel Travolta, Nicole Travolta, Molly Allen Ritter, Tom Fridley, and Sam Travolta
Travolta's entry into literature
Travolta is a qualified pilot and owns five airplanes, including a former Qantas Boeing 707-138. The plane bears the name Jett Clipper Ella in honor of his son Jett and his daughter Ella. Pan Am was a large operator of the 707 and used Clipper in their names. His house in Jumbolair, Florida has its own runway and taxiway right to the door. In 1993, Travolta successfully performed an emergency landing of a plane with electric trouble at Washington National Airport, now known as Reagan Washington National Airport.
In 1992, he wrote and illustrated a short children's book entitled Propeller One-Way Night Coach about the fictional journey of an 8 year old boy named Jeff across the USA in the 1950s.
Filmography
The Devil's Rain (1975)
Carrie (1976)
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976)
Saturday Night Fever (1977)
Grease (1978)
Moment by Moment (1978)
Urban Cowboy (1980)
Blow Out (1981)
Two of a Kind (1983)
Staying Alive (1983)
Perfect (1985)
The Experts (1989)
Look Who's Talking (1989)
Look Who's Talking Too (1990)
Eyes of an Angel (1991)
Shout (1991)
Boris and Natasha (1992) (Cameo)
Look Who's Talking Now (1993)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
White Man's Burden (1995)
Get Shorty (1995)
Broken Arrow (1996)
Orientation: A Scientology Information Film (1996) (short subject)
Phenomenon (1996)
Michael (1996)
She's So Lovely (1997)
Face/Off (1997)
Mad City (1997)
Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's (1997) (documentary)
Primary Colors (1998)
Junket Whore (1998) (documentary)
The Thin Red Line (1998)
A Civil Action (1998)
The General's Daughter (1999)
Battlefield Earth (2000)
Lucky Numbers (2000)
Welcome to Hollywood (2000) (documentary)
Swordfish (2001)
Domestic Disturbance (2001)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) (cameo)
Basic (2003)
The Punisher (2004)
A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004)
Ladder 49 (2004)
Be Cool (2005)
Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D (2005) (documentary) (narrator)
Lonely Hearts (2006)
Upcoming:
2004: A Light Knight's Odyssey (2006) (voice)
Television Work
The Tenth Level (1975)
Welcome Back, Kotter (cast member from 1975 - 1978)
The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976)
Basements (1987)
Chains of Gold (1991) (also writer)
Punk'd (2004) (Uncredited)
Music career
Discography
John Travolta (1976)
Can't Let You Go (1977)
Travolta Fever (1978)
Grease (movie soundtrack) (1978)
Let Her In: The Best of John Travolta (1996)
The Collection (2003)
Singles
"You Set My Dreams To Music" (1969)
"Goodnight Mr. Moon" (1969)
"Rainbows" (1969)
"Settle Down" (1970)
"Moonlight Lady" (1971)
"Right Time Of The Night" (1972)
"Big Trouble" (1972)
"What Would They Say" (1973)
"Back Doors Crying" (1973)
"Easy Evil" (1975)
"Can't Let You Go" (1975)
"Let Her In" (1976)
"Slow Dancin'" (1976)
"It Had To Be You" (1976)
"I Don't Know What I Like About You Baby" (1976)
"Baby, I Could Be So Good At Lovin' You" (1977)
"Razzamatazz" (1977)
"Sandy" (1978)
"Greased Lightnin'" (1978)
"Never Gonna Fall In Love Again" (1980)
