John Travolta

John Travolta dominated Hollywood as its foremost leading man across the closing years of the 1970s. Successive triumphs on the big screen, the small screen, and music charts had turned him into an authentic cultural force who shaped prevailing sounds and styles while commanding nonstop coverage across daily papers, periodicals, and scandal sheets. Most luminaries watch their early celebrity fade quickly, and Travolta’s own initial renown likewise evaporated by the 1980s, when both journalists and audiences treated him chiefly as a leftover from an earlier moment. He nevertheless defied that pattern, rising again in the next decade like a mythic bird reborn from ashes, reclaiming his stature as a film superstar while establishing himself among the most respected performers working in modern cinema.

He entered the world on February 18, 1954, in Englewood, New Jersey, the youngest of six siblings born into a household already steeped in entertainment. His father, Salvatore, had played semi-professional football, while his mother, Helen, had sung with the radio vocal ensemble the Sunshine Sisters and later taught drama at a high school. All but one of his brothers and sisters also entered show business. Travolta joined a local acting ensemble at age twelve and soon performed in neighborhood musicals and dinner-theater productions; he additionally studied tap dancing under Fred Kelly, brother of Gene Kelly. At sixteen he left high school to pursue acting full time, moving to Manhattan for his off-Broadway debut in the 1972 production of Rain. A supporting part in the touring company of the hit musical Grease came next, and in 1973 he appeared with the Andrews Sisters in the Broadway show Over Here! He made his screen debut in 1975 with a small part in the horror film The Devil’s Rain.

That same year brought him the role of Vinnie Barbarino, a slow-witted high-school seducer, on the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter. Overnight the character made him a household name, and his likeness soon appeared on T-shirts, lunch boxes, and countless other products. Even before the series premiered, he had secured a minor part in Brian DePalma’s 1976 film Carrie, opening doors to motion pictures. At the height of his Kotter popularity he also cut several pop albums—Can’t Let Go, John Travolta, and Travolta Fever—landing a substantial hit with the single “Let Her In.” Although offered a role in Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven, his Kotter commitments forced him to decline; he did, however, film the 1976 television movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble under director Randal Kleiser, earning strong reviews. His on-screen mother in that project, Diana Hyland, became his real-life companion until her death from cancer in 1977.

Following Hyland’s passing, Travolta’s breakthrough feature Saturday Night Fever reached theaters in 1977. The modern-day Rebel Without a Cause, set amid New York’s disco scene, instantly positioned him as Hollywood’s most discussed young actor. The performance brought his first Academy Award nomination and cemented his status as an emblem of the period, his white-suited silhouette and swaggering dance moves becoming indelible symbols of late-1970s American life. In 1978 he starred again for Kleiser in the film version of Grease, this time as the lead greaser Danny Zuko. The picture surpassed Saturday Night Fever at the box office, became a perennial favorite, and, like its predecessor, generated a hugely successful soundtrack album. With these consecutive hits and his ongoing appearances on Welcome Back, Kotter, Travolta appeared unstoppable.

His fortunes soon reversed. The first stumble came with 1978’s Moment by Moment, a widely ridiculed May-December romance opposite Lily Tomlin that flopped commercially. He next turned down the lead in Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo—a part later given to Richard Gere—to headline 1980’s Urban Cowboy. The film and its blockbuster soundtrack revived his commercial standing, doing for country music and cowboy hats what Saturday Night Fever had done for disco and leisure suits; the surge of new fans even prompted music historians to label Nashville’s early-1980s era the “Urban Cowboy” period. The following year he reunited with DePalma for the underappreciated Blow Out, earning some of his strongest notices yet while falling short at the box office.

Travolta again declined a career-defining role, this time the lead in An Officer and a Gentleman (once more awarded to Gere), in order to reprise Tony Manero in the 1983 Saturday Night Fever sequel Staying Alive. Directed by Sylvester Stallone, the movie earned decent returns but never achieved blockbuster scale. Two of a Kind, released months later and reteaming him with Grease co-star Olivia Newton-John, likewise failed to recapture past magic and quickly vanished from theaters. With his career now uncertain, he returned after a two-year absence in 1985’s Perfect; when that picture underperformed, critics dismissed him as a one-hit wonder whose moment had passed. A stretch of misguided projects, poor counsel, and squandered chances followed. By 1988 he had been absent from screens for three years, and the long-delayed comedy The Experts finally appeared in 1989 to dismal results, seemingly ending his viability as a star.

Later that year the modest comedy Look Who’s Talking arrived with little fanfare. Co-starring Travolta and Kirstie Alley, the film cost roughly eight million dollars yet ultimately grossed nearly 150 million, later spawning two sequels: 1990’s Look Who’s Talking Too and 1993’s Look Who’s Talking Now. His 1991 releases Eyes of an Angel and Shout both underperformed, and once the Look Who’s Talking series wound down he again found himself written off. In 1994 he engineered one of the most dramatic resurgences in Hollywood history by headlining Pulp Fiction, the acclaimed crime drama written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. A devoted Travolta admirer, Tarantino crafted the role of Vincent Vega expressly for the actor. The film became both a critical and commercial triumph, reintroducing Travolta to a fresh audience and earning him a second Academy Award nomination.

In the aftermath of Pulp Fiction, Travolta became one of Hollywood’s busiest performers. Following Tarantino’s counsel he took the lead in Barry Sonnenfeld’s 1995 adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s Get Shorty. Many reviewers hailed the performance as his strongest to date, and the picture proved another major success. He next appeared in John Woo’s 1996 action film Broken Arrow. Phenomenon also scored big that summer, and by Christmas he returned as a fallen angel in Michael. The following year he collaborated again with Woo on the hit thriller Face/Off, then delivered a supporting performance in Nick Cassavetes’ She’s So Lovely. After 1997’s Mad City he starred as a charismatic, Bill Clinton-like president in Mike Nichols’ political satire Primary Colors, with an adaptation of A Civil Action scheduled next.

Travolta continued to draw audiences through the first half of the 2000s before shifting toward supporting roles, including praised turns in the 2007 musical Hairspray and Oliver Stone’s 2012 thriller Savages. Also in 2012 he rejoined Olivia Newton-John for the holiday album This Christmas.