Hollywood Actor John Travolta Full Biography
John Travolta Biography
The youngest of six kids, John Joseph Travolta was born on Feb. 18, 1954, and raised in Englewood, NJ. In contrast to the round robin dinner table slapping of the "Saturday Night Fever" Manero family, Travolta's home was a liberal, artistic haven, with his older siblings involved in local theater and his mother Helen's solid background as a singer, actress, and drama teacher. Travolta wanted to be onstage from the start, and was fortunate to gain early exposure to theater, dance, and art films at home. His father Salvatore - co-owner of the family business Travolta Tire Exchange - had built a stage in the basement, but Travolta, nicknamed "Bone" because he was so skinny, hardly needed it, as he would perform for anyone, anywhere, at the drop of a hat. His parents enrolled him in drama school in New York, where he learned the holy trinity of old-school entertainment: singing, acting and dancing. By the age of 12, he was appearing in local productions.
At 16, Travolta landed his first professional role in a summer stock production of "Bye Bye Birdie." Following his junior year of high school, he dropped out to pursue entertainment, moving in with his sister Ann in Manhattan. He began building a resume with off-Broadway dramas and musicals, TV commercials, and even recorded a few pop singles for local record labels. In Hollywood, Travolta spent a couple of years trying to break into the business, but after a few guest spots on medical and cop dramas, returned to New York where he debuted on Broadway in "Grease." He wasn't Danny Zuko material yet, but while touring for nearly a year as a supporting player, he was determined that he would one day take the lead. Travolta landed on Broadway's boards again in 1974 in the Tony-nominated musical, "Over Here." The same year, the budding pilot who had been squirreling away his acting money for flying lessons, finally earned his wings. Having grown up in the flight path of LaGuardia airport, he was about the join the ranks of jet setters that used to pass overhead - in more ways than one.
Travolta flew to New Mexico to play a small part in the film "Devil's Rain" (1975), and upon his return was met with a casting call for an ABC sitcom called "Welcome Back Kotter." He proved to be a perfect choice to play Vinnie Barbarino, an inner-city remedial high school student, resident stud and head of a clique of wiseass underachievers called The Sweathogs. His feathered-haired sex appeal - combined with his faux naiveté and occasionally outrageous physical comedy - made him the breakout star of the ensemble cast, his likeness appearing on an avalanche of merchandising tie-ins. The music industry smelled a pop star in the making, handing the actor a series of bland ballads including "Let Her In," which reached number 20 on the Billboard charts.
The well-rounded entertainer continued to explore his range, first as a taunting bully to wide-eyed Sissy Spacek in Brian DePalma's teen telekinesis classic "Carrie" (1976). The same year he was beloved as an immune deficient teen in ABC's legendary telefilm, "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" (1976). While filming the classic melodrama, Travolta began a romantic relationship with his onscreen mother, Diana Hyland, who was 18 years his senior and an unexpected choice for a young heartthrob who likely had his pick of young, nubile romantic partners.
With "Saturday Night Fever" (1977), John Travolta transitioned from TV and pop music personality to full-fledged movie star. The choice Bee Gees soundtrack and flashy dance sequences were enough to bring in audiences seeking a peek into the high-energy, indulgent world of a New York City disco. But it was Travolta's flawless - and Oscar-nominated - portrayal of a 20-year-old paint store clerk beginning to outgrow his roots that resonated so universally and provided the film's depth. Tony Manero was the king of his local Brooklyn disco, but an emerging understanding of his dead-end life began to crumble his foundation, his desire for something better embodied by a love interest who knew firsthand of the promised land just across the river in Manhattan. The film worked on every level and quickly became a favorite of audiences and critics alike, not to mention how it fueled the dying embers of the fading disco trend with a best-selling soundtrack.
During shooting of "Fever," Travolta was dealt a heavy card when the love of his life, Diana Hyland, now a cast member of "Eight is Enough" (ABC, 1977-81), cast as mother of the large clan, died of cancer, reportedly in Travolta's arms. Despite knowing she was fatally ill, she had been the one person who had insisted he take on the role of Manero. He suffered an equal blow in 1978 with the loss of his influential and supportive mother.
Coming off such an intense double-dose of grief, the 22-year-old soldiered ahead with another career-defining role in the 1950s high school musical, "Grease" (1978). The production was a bold undertaking for all involved, as American cinema was just coming off a run of character-based dramas and had not seen a big screen musical in a decade. Travolta took the risk, finally realizing his early dream of playing greaser bad boy Danny Zuko, and wooing the proper Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John). The film was admittedly less substantive than "Saturday Night Fever," but Travolta's singing, dancing, and dimpled charm sparkled, cementing his role as a bona fide movie star. "Grease" received five Golden Globe nominations and became Hollywood's highest grossing film musical of all time, with Travolta scoring his first major hit single with the film's best-selling soundtrack - his duet with Newton-John, "You're the One that I Want."
Travolta continued to prove his talent as an icon of specific cultural movements in the well-received "Urban Cowboy" (1980), which chronicled a macho Texas refinery worker with a tumultuous young marriage and a mean competitive streak on his local honkytonk's mechanical bull. The film spawned another hit soundtrack and jumpstarted a revival of country music and its accompanying cowboy hats and boots. Brian De Palma's "Blow Out" (1981) offered Travolta one of his most complex roles yet - a dedicated film sound recordist who accidentally records a political assassination. Though the result was a richly shaded portrait of the hack artist as fallen idealist, "Blow Out" stalled at the box-office, as did a pumped-up Travolta in "Staying Alive" (1983), the laughable Sylvester Stallone-directed sequel to "Saturday Night Fever." In this sequel, Manero had moved to conquer Broadway, starring in a ridiculous Hell-inspired production called "Satan's Alley," while at the same time, trying to woo two lady dancers at the same time - the good girl (Cynthia Rhodes) and the diva star (Finola Hughes). In fact, the only memorable aspect of the movie, was the lead song, "Far From Over," sung by Stallone's brother, Frank.
After being the most popular film star of the 1970s, the versatile actor subsequently languished for nearly a decade in mostly forgettable, unpopular films. He could literally, as the cliché g s, not get arrested in Hollywood. His most "notable" work during this phase was the horrible work-out film "Perfect" (1985) co-starring an equally scantily clad Jamie Lee Curtis. Better was the 1987 ABC-TV special: Harold Pinter's "The Dumb Waiter," a one-act, two-character play directed by Robert Altman, in which Travolta played a Cockney hit man. It was not until the 1989 sleeper hit "Look Who's Talking," that Travolta would become associated with a major box-office success, along with his Scientology buddy, Kirstie Alley - though, in this case, neither star was the main attraction. This romantic comedy featured the then popular gimmick of presenting a baby's thoughts in voice-over (Bruce Willis) and generated two more gigs for the former superstar - "Look Who's Talking Too" (1990) and "Look Who's Talking Now" (1993). At least he was in a hit movie and was handed over a decent paycheck.
During this period, Travolta met actress Kelly Preston and the pair married in 1991 in a Scientology ceremony that was later determined to be not legally binding, necessitating an additional ceremony. Travolta had been active with the church since a chance reading of its tome Dianetics in 1975, crediting his instant rise to success afterwards to its teachings. The couple had their son Jett in 1992, the same year that Travolta wrote and illustrated an airplane-themed children's book called Propeller One-Way Night Coach. At that time in his career, Preston was the bigger name in film - and that was not saying much. He literally was a has-been at the age 40.
But then 1994 arrived. In that year, Travolta's career and street cred sprang back to life with Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" (1994). In the filmmaker's jarringly funny and violent non-linear crime spree, Travolta was relatively heavy-set, long-haired and wearing earrings - his Vincent Vega, a strangely sympathetic hit man with a heroin habit and a disconcertingly innocent view of the world. Tarantino's inventive style was highly-praised and the film's influence on the independent film genre assured that Travolta would again be forever associated with a memorable moment in pop culture history. Overnight, the resuscitated star found himself deluged with scripts and deals, offering him the biggest paydays to date of his estimable career, as well as a second Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Travolta would in fact give props to Tarantino - known for his quirky casting tastes - for giving rebirth to his career.
Older and wiser than his first time on the A-list, Travolta was able to parlay his "Pulp Fiction" success into even greater stardom than he had known in the 1970s or early 1980s. He worked non-stop, taking advantage of film opportunities like Barry Sonnenfeld's popular adaptation of Elmore Leonard's "Get Shorty" (1995), in which he garnered acclaim for his portrayal of Chili Palmer, the ultra-cool hit man who becomes entranced by Hollywood. In "White Man's Burden" (1995), Travolta starred with Harry Belafonte in an ambitious film about discrimination that won mixed critical notices and little audience support. He followed with John Woo's action-adventure thriller, "Broken Arrow" (1996), in which he played a pilot who masterminds an extortion plot against the US government.
Off-screen, Travolta was by now a licensed pilot for a variety of classes of aircraft and kept a personal fleet of planes at his home in Florida. In 1996, he reportedly received an $8 million fee for "Phenomenon," in which he played a man who develops superior abilities after being struck by a white light. The press virtually overlooked this indiscretion, and studios continued to line up for his services. In his spare time, Travolta continued to fly the friendly skies, eventually earning his shot at flying jumbo jets.
That $8 million fee was a bargain compared to what Travolta was soon earning (but significantly more than the $140,000 he earned for his comeback film). He finished 1996 as a fallen angel in Nora Ephron's "Michael," before unleashing a juggernaut line-up in 1997-98. It was almost as if he wanted to make as many films as possible before his luck ran out again. He was again paired with John Woo for "Face/Off," a lyrical thriller about identity exchange that wove together sadistic cruelty and grotesque sentimentality with breathtaking assurance. Although most critics despaired over Costa-Gavras' "Mad City" (1997) and panned Travolta's singularly stupid character, he found himself on surer ground in Nick Cassavetes' romantic drama, "She's So Lovely" (1997), which matched him with far better results opposite Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn and afforded him a role of some nuance. He received $20 million (or more) to portray Governor Jack Stanton, a thinly veiled adaptation of then-President Bill Clinton, in Mike Nichols' "Primary Colors" (1998). He also squeezed in performances as an attorney battling powerful corporations on behalf of toxic poisoning victims in "A Civil Action" and was part of a star-studded cast including Sean Penn, John Cusack, Gary Oldman and George Clooney in Terrence Malick's war pix, "The Thin Red Line" (1998).
After appearing in the unsuccessful and highly ridiculed apocalyptic alien movie written by Ron L. Hubbard, "Battlefield Earth" (2000) which he also produced - and which many perceived as a vanity project and payback to Scientology - Travolta and Preston gave birth to a daughter Ella and redeemed papa's film career as another top-notch bad guy in the otherwise routine action thriller, "Swordfish" (2001). Unfortunately, the forgettable film was more notable for Halle Berry's nude scene than for anything else. With the routine thriller "Basic" (2003), Travolta played a DEA agent investigating a mysterious disappearance - which suggested that the actor was formally stuck in one of his career ruts. His subsequent role, as the villainous money-launder Howard Saint in the comic book superhero adaptation "The Punisher" (2004) was a step in the right direction performance-wise, walking a fine line between a realistic performance and moments of high camp, but the film itself was not overwhelming.
Travolta delivered a strong performance in his follow-up, "Ladder 49" (2004), playing a veteran firefighter who tries to impart practical wisdom to a promising up-and-comer (Joaquin Ph nix). Although the part was not entirely suited to Travolta's strengths, the actor made the most of the supporting role. He easily slipped back into character as Chili Palmer for the entertaining sequel "Be Cool" (2005), in which Chili segues from the movie biz into the music industry. After an unusual two-year hiatus from the big screen - he had been working incessantly since "Pulp Fiction" - Travolta emerged in "Wild Hogs" (2007), a big, dumb and wildly successful road comedy about four middle-aged men (Travolta, Tim Allen, Martin Lawrence and William H. Macy) who set out to prove their manhood with a freewheeling, cross-country motorcycle trip. Despite a bevy of bad reviews, "Wild Hogs" reaped a box office whirlwind, but with the musical "Hairspray" (2007), critics and audiences alike were in agreement that Travolta was still the real deal - a genuine star.
Playing a role originated by famed drag queen Divine in the original John Waters film, Travolta was outrageously entertaining as Edna Turnblad, the 1960s working class Baltimore mom of wannabe TV dance star Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Bosky). The role necessitated an agonizing amount of prosthetics and makeup to transform Travolta into a Hefty Hideaway spokes model, but the veteran stage star still danced his way into a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The summer blockbuster went on to become the third top grossing musical of all time, with "Grease" still holding strong in first position. Meanwhile, Travolta made a rare foray into animated features, voicing the lead character in the popular and acclaimed "Bolt" (2008), a family adventure about a famous television dog who discovers that his fictional powers are of no use when he g s on a real-life cross-country journey to reunite with his costar (voiced by Miley Cyrus). Travolta earned a Golden Globe nomination for performing the song "I Thought I Lost You."
While awaiting the Golden Globes ceremony on vacation with his family in The Bahamas, tragedy struck when Travolta's son, Jett, died after suffering a seizure. A caretaker at the hotel where the family was staying found him unconscious on the bathroom floor. Jett was rushed to Rand Memorial Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. He was only 16. Travolta and Preston had in the past confirmed that Jett had a developmental issues they linked to Kawasaki Syndrome, an inflammatory disorder known to cause heart disease. Nine months after their son's death, Travolta revealed his son was actually autistic during court testimony he was forced to give after Bahamian officials tried to extort money from him regarding the circumstances of Jett's death.
Also Credited As:John Joseph Travolta
Born:John Joseph Travolta on February 18, 1954 in Englewood, New Jersey, USA
Job Titles:Actor, Dancer, Singer, Author, Illustrator
Family:
Brother: Joey Travolta. Older
Brother: Sammy Travolta. Older
Daughter: Ella Bleu. Born April 3, 2000; mother, Kelly Preston
Father: Salvatore Travolta. (1913-1995); semi-professional football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company
Mother: Helen Travolta. Irish-American; appeared in The Sunshine Sisters, a radio vocal group; acted and directed before becoming a high school drama and English teacher; was director of a summer theater until her family grew to six children; was 42 when John, the last child, was born; died of cancer in 1979
Sister: Annie Travolta. Older
Sister: Ellen Travolta. Older
Sister: Margaret Travolta. Older
Son: Benjamin Travolta. Born Nov. 23, 2010; mother, Kelly Preston
Son: Jett Travolta. Born April 13, 1992; mother, Kelly Preston; parents claimed he suffered from Kawasaki disease; died Jan. 02, 2009 after suffering from a seizure at his family s vacation home at the Old Bahama Bay Hotel on Grand Bahama Island; parents later admitted he was autistic
Significant Others:
Companion: Diana Hyland. Met while co-starring in the TV-movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976); Travolta was 18 years her junior; died of cancer on March 28, 1977
Companion: Marilu Henner. Met while touring in Grease in 1972; had on-again, off-again relationship until 1985
Wife: Kelly Preston. Born Oct. 13, 1962; met while filming The Experts (1989); engaged in January 1991; married Sep. 5, 1991 in Paris, France by a French Scientologist minister (was legally invalid); remarried in a legal union on Sep. 12, 1991 in Florida; was previously married to actor Kevin Gage from 1986-1989; also was briefly engaged to Charlie Sheen in 1989 and lived with George Clooney
Education:
Dwight Morrow High School, Englewood , New Jersey
Milestones:
1966 Stage debut in Who Will Save the Plowboy? at age 12
1970 Dropped out of high school at age 16
1974 Made Broadway debut in Over Here! ; acted opposite the Andrews Sisters for 10 months
1975 Cast as Vinnie Barbarino on Welcome Back, Kotter (ABC); began appearing with less frequency toward the end of its run
1975 Made feature film debut in a bit part in The Devil s Rain
1976 Had featured role in Brian De Palma s Carrie
1976 TV-movie debut, The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (ABC)
1977 First starring role in a feature, as Tony Manero, in Saturday Night Fever ; earned Best Actor Oscar nomination
1978 Reprised stage role for the feature version of Grease
1980 Starred with Debra Winger in Urban Cowboy
1981 Reteamed with De Palma for Blow Out
1987 Returned to TV to co-star in Harold Pinter s The Dumb Waiter ; a one-act play directed by Robert Altman
1989 Initially revived career with Look Who s Talking but did not follow up on movie s success
1990 Co-wrote screenplay and starred in Chains of Gold
1994 Revitalized feature acting career with an acclaimed portrayal of a junkie hitman in Quentin Tarantino s Pulp Fiction ; earned second Best Actor Academy Award nomination
1995 Cast as Chili Palmer in Barry Sonnenfeld s Get Shorty ; starred with Gene Hackman, Rene Russo and Danny DeVito
1996 First film with John Woo, Broken Arrow
1997 Starred opposite Nicolas Cage in second film with director John Woo Face/Off
1998 Played attorney Jan Schlichtman who battles powerful companies on behalf of the victims of toxic poisoning in A Civil Action ; based on the book by Jonathan Harr
1998 Portrayed Governor Jack Stanton in the political feature, Primary Colors ; helmed by Mike Nichols
2000 Realized dream project of starring in the feature adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard s sci-fi novel Battlefield Earth ; film and performance was panned by critics
2000 Starred opposite Lisa Kudrow in the Nora Ephron-directed Lucky Numbers
2001 Portrayed a spy in the thriller Swordfish
2003 Played a DEA agent in dramatic thriller Basic
2004 Cast as Chief Kennedy in the drama Ladder 49 also starring Joaquin Phoenix
2004 Cast opposite Thomas Jane in The Punisher
2004 Co-starred with Scarlett Johansson in A Love Song for Bobby Long
2005 Again played Chili Palmer, his charater from the hit film Get Shorty in its sequel Be Cool
2007 Cast in the comedy-adventure Wild Hogs, as one of four middle-aged friends who take a freewheeling motorcycle trip
2007 Portrayed housewife Edna Turnblad in the film version of the Broadway musical Hairspray ; earned a Golden Globe nomination for Supporting Actor
2008 Lent his voice to the title character, a small white German Shepherd, in the animated feature Bolt ; earned a Golden Globe nomination for performing the song I Thought I Lost You
2009 Co-starred with Robin Williams in the comedy, Old Dogs ; also starred wife Kelly Preston and daughter Ella Travolta
2009 Played the villainous role in Tony Scott s remake of The Taking of Pelham 123
2010 Played an FBI Agent, opposite Jonathan Rhys Meyers, in From Paris with Love ; co-written by Luc Besson
Acted in Off-Broadway productions
Appeared in the original Broadway production of Grease (also toured with show for 10 months)
Began acting career in summer stock in New Jersey
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