John Travolta

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Biography

John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor, dancer, and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease (film)|Grease . Travolta's acting career declined in the early 1980s and continued to deteriorate for the rest of the decade. His career enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s with his role in Pulp Fiction (film)|Pulp Fiction , and he has since continued starring in Hollywood films, including Face/Off , Ladder 49 , and Wild Hogs . Travolta was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction . He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in Get Shorty (film)|Get Shorty .

Early life

Travolta, the youngest of six children, was born and raised in Englewood, New Jersey|Englewood , New Jersey, an inner-ring suburb of New York City. His father, Salvatore Travolta (November 1912 – May 1995), was a semi-professional American football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company. His mother, Helen Cecilia (née Burke, January 1912 – December 1978), was an actress and singer who had appeared in The Sunshine Sisters , a radio vocal group, and acted and directed before becoming a high school drama and English teacher.Stated on Inside the Actors Studio , 2003 His siblings, Joey Travolta|Joey , Ellen Travolta|Ellen , Ann, Margaret Travolta|Margaret , and Sam Travolta, have all acted. His father was a second-generation Italian American and his mother was Irish American ; he grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood and has said that his household was predominantly Irish in culture. He was raised Roman Catholic , but converted to Scientology in 1975.

Career

Early career

After attending Dwight Morrow High School , Travolta moved across the Hudson River to New York City and landed a role in the touring company of the musical Grease (musical)|Grease and on Broadway in Over Here! , singing the Sherman Brothers ' song " Dream Drummin' ". He then moved to Los Angeles to further his career in show business.

Travolta's first California-filmed television role was as a fall victim in, Emergency! (S2E2), in September 1972, but his first significant movie role was as Billy Nolan , a bully who was goaded into playing a prank on Sissy Spacek 's character in the horror film, Carrie (1976 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 sister, Ellen Travolta|Ellen , also occasionally appeared (as Arnold Horshack 's mother). The show aired on American Broadcasting Company|ABC .

1970s stardom

Around this time, Travolta had a hit single entitled "Let Her In", peaking at number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In the next few years, he appeared in two of his most noted screen roles: Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever (1977) and as Danny Zuko in Grease (film)|Grease (1978). The films were among the most commercially successful pictures of the decade and catapulted Travolta to international stardom. Saturday Night Fever earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. At age 24, Travolta became one of List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees#Youngest nominees 2|the youngest performers ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscar . His mother and his sister Ann appeared as extras in Saturday Night Fever and his sister Ellen appeared as a waitress in Grease . Travolta performed several of the songs on the Grease soundtrack album. In 1980, Travolta inspired a nationwide country music craze that followed on the heels of his hit film, Urban Cowboy , in which he starred with Debra Winger .

Downturn

After Urban Cowboy , Travolta starred in a series of financial and critical failures that sidelined his acting career. These included Perfect (film)|Perfect , co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis , and Two of a Kind (1983 film)|Two of a Kind , a romantic comedy reteaming him with Olivia Newton-John . During that time he was offered, but turned down, lead roles in what would become box office hits, including American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman , both of which went to Richard Gere .

Resurgence

In 1989, Travolta starred in '' Look Who's Talking , which grossed United States dollar|$ 297,000,000, making it his most successful film since Grease (film)|Grease . Travolta continued to the two sequels Look Who's Talking Too (1990) and Look Who's Talking Now '' (1993). But it was not until he played Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino 's hit Pulp Fiction (film)|Pulp Fiction (1994), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, that his career revived. The movie shifted him back onto the A-list , and he was inundated with offers. Notable roles following Pulp Fiction include a movie-buff loan shark in Get Shorty (film)|Get Shorty (1995), an FBI agent and terrorist in Face/Off (1997), a desperate attorney in A Civil Action (film)|A Civil Action (1998), a Bill Clinton-esque presidential candidate in Primary Colors (film)|Primary Colors (1998), and a military detective in '' The General's Daughter (film)|The General's Daughter (1999).

2000–present

Travolta also starred in Battlefield Earth (film)|Battlefield Earth (2000) based on a work of science fiction by L. Ron Hubbard , in which he played the leader of a group of aliens that enslaves humanity on a bleak future Earth. The film received almost universally negative reviews and did very poorly at the box office. Travolta played Mrs. Edna Turnblad in the remake of Hairspray (2007 film)|Hairspray , his first musical since Grease . stv.tv

Personal life

Travolta was in a relationship with actress Diana Hyland , whom he met while filming The Boy in the Plastic Bubble ; Hyland died of breast cancer in 1977.

Travolta married actress Kelly Preston in 1991. The couple had a son, Jett (1992–2009). Their daughter, Ella Bleu, was born in 2000. On May 18, 2010, Travolta and Preston announced that she was pregnant with the couple's third child, later confirmed to be a boy. Their son, Benjamin, was born on November 23, 2010 in Florida.

Travolta and Preston have regularly attended marriage counseling; Travolta has stated that therapy has helped the marriage.

Travolta is a certified private pilot and owns five aircraft, including an ex-Qantas Boeing 707|Boeing 707–138 airliner. The plane bears the name Jett Clipper Ella in honor of his children. Pan American World Airways was a large operator of the Boeing 707 and used Clipper in its names. The 707 aircraft bears the marks of Qantas , as Travolta acts as an official goodwill ambassador for the airline wherever he flies. His $4.9& nbsp;million estate in the Jumbolair subdivision in Ocala, Florida , is situated on Greystone Airport with its own runway and taxiway right to his front door.Kelly Preston showed a picture of this on the August 29, 2007, episode of '' Late Night with Conan O'Brien .

On November 24, 1992, Travolta was piloting his Gulfstream II|Gulfstream N728T at night above a solid undercast , when he experienced a total electrical system failure, while flying under instrument flight rules into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport . During the emergency landing he almost had a mid-air collision with a US Airways|USAir Boeing 727 , an event attributed to a risky decision by an air traffic controller.

On September 13, 2010, during the first episode of the final season of The Oprah Winfrey Show|her talk show , Oprah Winfrey announced that she would be taking her entire studio audience on an 8-day expenses-paid trip to Australia, with Travolta serving as pilot for the trip. He had helped Winfrey plan the trip for over a year.

Travolta has been a practitioner of Scientology since 1975 when he was given the book Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health|Dianetics while filming the movie '' The Devil's Rain '' in Durango , Mexico. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake , joining other celebrities in helping with the relief efforts, Travolta flew his 707 full of supplies, doctors, and Scientologist Volunteer Ministers into the disaster area.

In May 2012, an anonymous masseur filed a lawsuit against Travolta citing claims of sexual assault and battery. A lawyer for Travolta said that the allegations were "complete fiction and fabrication" and someone wanting their 15 minutes of fame . Travolta's counsel also stated that his client would be able to prove that he was not in California on the day in question and asserted that Travolta would "sue the attorney and Plaintiff for malicious prosecution" after getting the case thrown out. A second masseur later joined the lawsuit making similar claims.

Son's death

On January 2, 2009, Travolta and Preston's son, Jett, died while on their vacation in The Bahamas . A Bahamian death certificate was issued, attributing the cause of death to a seizure . Jett, who had a history of seizures, reportedly suffered from Kawasaki disease as an infant. On September 24, 2009, Travolta and Preston confirmed speculation that their son had autism and suffered regular seizures. They made their statements while giving testimony after a multi-million dollar extortion plot against them regarding the circumstances of their son's death. After a mistrial, Travolta dropped the charges. Travolta has credited his family and faith in helping him survive the tragic death of his son, and in moving forward with his film career.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1975	sortname>The	John	TV movie
1975	sortname>The	Danny
1976	sortname>The	Tod Lubitch	ubl>TV movie
1976	Carrie	Billy Nolan
1977	Saturday Night Fever	Tony Manero	ubl> National Board of Review Award for Best Actor
1978	Moment by Moment	Strip Harrison
1978	Grease	Daniel "Danny" Zuko	ubl> Golden Globe Award
1980	Urban Cowboy	Buford 'Bud' Uan Davis
1981	Blow Out	Jack Terry
1983	Staying Alive	Tony Manero
1983	Two of a Kind	Zack Melon
1985	Perfect	Adam Lawrence
1987	Dumb Waiter#Television films>Basements	Ben	TV segment "The Dumb Waiter"
1989	'' Look Who's Talking	James Ubriacco
1989	sortname>The	Travis
1990	'' Look Who's Talking Too	James Ubriacco
1991	Shout	Jack Cabe
1991	Eyes Of An Angel	Bobby	aka The Tender
1991	Chains of Gold	Scott Barnes	TV movie; also writer
1992	Boris and Natasha: The Movie	Himself	cameo
1993	'' Look Who's Talking Now	James Ubriacco
1994	Pulp Fiction (film)>Pulp Fiction	Vincent Vega	ubl> MTV Movie Award for Best Dance Sequence (shared with Uma Thurman )
1995	Get Shorty	Chili Palmer	ubl> American Comedy Award
1995	White Man's Burden	Louis Pinnock
1996	Michael	Michael
1996	Phenomenon	George Malley
1996	Orientation: A Scientology Information Film	Himself	short subject
1996	Broken Arrow	Maj. Vic 'Deak' Deakins
1997	Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's	Himself	documentary
1997	Mad City	Sam Baily
1997	Face/ Off	Sean Archer / Castor Troy	ubl> MTV Movie Award for Best On-Screen Duo (shared with Nicolas Cage )
1997	'' She's So Lovely	Joey Giamonti	also executive producer
1998	sortname>A	Jan Schlichtmann
1998	sortname>The	Brigadier General Quintard	Satellite Special Achievement Award for Outstanding Motion Picture Ensemble
1998	Junket Whore	Himself	documentary
1998	Primary Colors	Governor Jack Stanton	Nomination— Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1999	sortname>The	Warr. Off. Paul Brenner/ Sgt. Frank White
1999	Our Friend, Martin	Kyle's dad	animated educational film, voice only
2000	Welcome to Hollywood	Himself	mockumentary ; cameo
2000	Lucky Numbers	Russ Richards
2000	Battlefield Earth	Terl	also producer Razzie Award for Worst Actor
2001	Domestic Disturbance	Frank Morrison
2001	Swordfish	Gabriel Shear
2002	Austin Powers in Goldmember	"Austinpussy" Johann van der Smut (Goldmember) / Himself	cameo
2003	Basic	Tom Hardy
2004	Ladder 49	Captain Mike Kennedy
2004	sortname>A	Bobby Long
2004	sortname>The	Howard Saint
2005	Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D	James Benson "Jim" Irwin	narrator; documentary
2005	Be Cool	Chili Palmer
2006	Lonely Hearts	Elmer C. Robinson
2007	Wild Hogs	Woody Stevens
2007	Hairspray (2007 film)>Hairspray	Hairspray (musical)#Principal roles and casting>Edna Turnblad	ubl> Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast
2008	Bolt	Bolt the Dog	voice
2009	sortname>The	Benard Ryder
2009	Old Dogs	Charlie Reed
2010	From Paris with Love	Charlie Wax
2012	Savages	Dennis
2013	Killing Season	Emil Kovac

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1972	Emergency!	Chuck Benson	Episode: "Kids"
1972	Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law		Episode: "A Piece of God"
1973	sortname>The	Eddie Halley	Episode: " Frozen Smoke"
1974	Medical Center	Danny	Episode: "Saturday's Child"
1975–1979	Welcome Back, Kotter	Vincent "Vinnie" Barbarino	Credited as "Special Guest Star" (Season 4 only)

Discography

Albums

Year	Album	US
1974	Over Here!	—
1976	John Travolta	39
1977	''Can't Let You Go	66
1978	Travolta Fever	161
1978	Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture>Grease	1
1983	Two of a Kind	26
1986	The Road to Freedom	—
1996	Let Her In: The Best of John Travolta	—
2003	The Collection	—
2007	Hairspray	—

Singles

"Dream Drummin (1974)

"Easy Evil" (1975)

"Can't Let You Go" (1975)

"You Set My Dreams To Music" (1976)

"Goodnight Mr. Moon" (1976)

"Rainbows" (1976)

"Settle Down" (1976)

"Moonlight Lady" (1976)

"Right Time Of The Night" (1976)

"Big Trouble" (1976)

"What Would They Say" (1976)

"Back Doors Crying" (1976)

"Let Her In" (1976) – #10

"Whenever I'm Away From You" (1976) – #38

"Slow Dancin'" (1976)

"It Had To Be You" (1976)

"I Don't Know What I Like About You Baby" (1976)

"All Strung Out On You" (1977) – #34

"Baby, I Could Be So Good At Lovin' You" (1977)

"Razzamatazz" (1977)

" You're the One That I Want " – #1 (1978) (w/ Olivia Newton-John )

"Sandy" (1978)

"Greased Lightnin" (1978) – #47

" Never Gonna Fall in Love Again " (1980)

"Hooker Madness" (1983)

"Take A Chance" (1983) (w/ Olivia Newton-John )

"Two Sleepy People" (1997) (w/ Carly Simon )

"I Thought I Lost You" (2008) (w/ Miley Cyrus )

Undetermined Music Artists