John Travolta
John Travolta | |
|---|---|
 photographed in 2004 | |
| Born | John Joseph Travolta |
| Spouse | Kelly Preston (1991-) |
| Website | www.travolta.com |
John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe Award-winning American actor and singer. He established his career as a leading Hollywood actor with films such as Saturday Night Fever and Grease. Travolta enjoyed a career revival in the 1990s, stemming from his role in Pulp Fiction.
Biography
Early life
Travolta, youngest of six children, was born in Englewood, New Jersey. His father, Salvatore Travolta, was a second-generation Italian American semi-professional football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company,[1] and his mother, Helen Cecilia Burke, was an Irish American[2] [3] actress and singer who had appeared in The Sunshine Sisters, a radio vocal group, and acted and directed before becoming a high school drama teacher. She was 42 when Travolta was born. Travolta grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood[4] and has said that his household was predominantly Irish in culture. His family was Catholic.[5]
Travolta's paternal grandfather, also named Salvatore Travolta, immigrated to the United States in 1904, at the age of 25. He arrived in New York City on 23 June 1904, aboard the Nord-America from Palermo, Sicily, according to the shipping manifests posted at www.ellisisland.org. He gave his hometown as Godrano, Sicily.[6]
Early career
After dropping out of Dwight Morrow High School after his junior year, Travolta moved to New York City to get a job as a performer. He landed roles in the touring company of Grease (musical) and on Broadway in Over Here! singing the Sherman Brothers' song "Dream Drummin'.'" Travolta also cut singles for a local record company, but the songs were quickly forgotten. But eventually, he moved to Los Angeles to further his career in show business.
Travolta's first television role was as a fall victim in Emergency! in 1973, but his first major movie role as Billy Nolan, a sadistic bully 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 sister, Ellen, also occasionally appeared (as Arnold Horshack's mother).
70s stardom
Around this time he also 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 some of his most memorable screen roles: Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever (1977) and as Danny Zuko in Grease (1978). 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, that eventually went on to sell more than 10 million copies. 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 came a string of flops that sidelined his acting career. Some suggest that he was typecast as a disco stud or 1970s icon, which could be the reason his agent intervened on several occasions to turn down acting roles. During that time he was offered, but turned down, lead roles in what would become box office hits, including American Gigolo, An Officer and A Gentleman, Splash and Fatal Attraction. The first two films ultimately starred Richard Gere in the lead role and went to become box office successes. This was also the case much later in his career with the movie Chicago - the role of lawyer Billy Flynn was offered to Travolta, but ultimately was played by Gere; the film went on to become a highly commercial and critical success. His only hit film during this period was alongside Kirstie Alley and a baby voiced by Bruce Willis in Look Who's Talking.
Resurgence
It was not until he played Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino's 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. Coincidentally, before Travolta took the role he visited Tarantino, who was living in the same ramshackle apartment in Los Angeles that Travolta had inhabited when he got his start. Notable roles following Pulp Fiction include a movie-buff loan shark in Get Shorty (1995), an FBI agent in Face/Off (1997), a desperate attorney in A Civil Action (1998) and a military detective in The General's Daughter (1999).
Travolta also starred in 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.[7] Travolta, who converted to Scientology in 1975 and endorses Hubbard's teachings, had hoped that the film would be well received and be the first in a series of Hubbard film adaptations. In fact, the film won a Razzie Award for Worst Film of the Year at the 2000 awards.
Travola starred as a workaholic with a bad hairpiece turned biker in 2007's Wild Hogs. Travolta will play Edna Turnblad in the upcoming adaptation of Hairspray.
Personal life
Travolta married actress Kelly Preston in 1991. They have a son named Jett, and a daughter named Ella Bleu.
Travolta is a FAA licensed pilot and owns five airplanes, including an ex-Australian airliner, the Qantas 707-138. The plane bears the name Jett Clipper Ella in honour of his son Jett and his daughter Ella. Pan Am was a large operator of the 707 and used Clipper in their names. The 707 aircraft bears the marks of Qantas, as Travolta acts as an official goodwill ambassador for the airline wherever he flies. His US$4.9 million estate in the Jumbolair subdivision in Ocala, Florida is situated on Greystone Airport with its own runway and taxiway right to the door. [citation needed]
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.[citation needed]
In 2007, Travolta intervened on behalf of fellow scientologist Tom Davis who he believed had been unfairly treated in the BBC current affairs program Panorama episode "Scientology and Me", lobbying MP's to stop the documentary from being aired.[citation needed]
Travolta was previously involved with actress Diana Hyland, who died of breast cancer in 1977.[8]
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 | The Devil's Rain | Danny | |
| 1976 | The Boy in the Plastic Bubble | Tod Lubitch | |
| Carrie | Billy Nolan | ||
| 1977 | Saturday Night Fever | Tony Manero | |
| 1978 | Moment by Moment | Strip Harrison | |
| Grease | Danny Zuko | ||
| 1980 | Urban Cowboy | Buford 'Bud' Uan Davis | |
| 1981 | Blow Out | Jack Terry | |
| 1983 | Staying Alive | Tony Manero | |
| Two of a Kind | Zack | ||
| 1985 | Perfect | Adam Lawrence | |
| 1989 | Look Who's Talking | James Ubriacco | |
| The Experts | Travis | ||
| 1990 | Look Who's Talking Too | James Ubriacco | |
| 1991 | Shout | Jack Cabe | |
| Eyes of an Angel | Bobby | ||
| 1992 | Boris and Natasha | Himself | (cameo) |
| 1993 | Look Who's Talking Now | James Ubriacco | |
| 1994 | Pulp Fiction | Vincent Vega | |
| 1995 | Get Shorty | Chili Palmer | |
| White Man's Burden | Louis Pinnock | ||
| 1996 | Michael | Michael | |
| Phenomenon | George Malley | ||
| Orientation: A Scientology Information Film | Himself | (short subject) | |
| Broken Arrow | Maj. Vic 'Deak' Deakins | ||
| 1997 | Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen's | Himself | (documentary) |
| Mad City | Sam Baily | ||
| Face/Off | Sean Archer | ||
| She's So Lovely | Joey | ||
| 1998 | A Civil Action | Jan Schlichtmann | |
| The Thin Red Line | Brigadier General Quintard | ||
| Junket Whore | Himself | (documentary) | |
| Primary Colors | Governor Jack Stanton | ||
| 1999 | The General's Daughter | Warr. Off. Paul Brenner/Sgt. Frank White | |
| Our Friend, Martin | Kyle's dad | (animated educational film, voice only) | |
| 2000 | Welcome to Hollywood | Himself | (documentary) |
| Lucky Numbers | Russ Richards | ||
| Battlefield Earth | Terl | ||
| 2001 | Domestic Disturbance | Frank Morrison | |
| Swordfish | Gabriel Shear | ||
| 2002 | Austin Powers in Goldmember | "Austinpussy" Johann van der Smut | |
| 2003 | Basic | Hardy | |
| 2004 | Ladder 49 | Captain Mike Kennedy | |
| A Love Song for Bobby Long | Bobby Long | ||
| The Punisher | Howard Saint | ||
| 2005 | Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon 3D | Himself | (narrator; documentary) |
| Be Cool | Chili Palmer | ||
| 2006 | Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey | Dave | (voice only; currently filming) |
| Lonely Hearts | Elmer C. Robinson | ||
| 2007 | Hairspray | Edna Turnblad | (post-production) |
| Wild Hogs | Woody | ||
| Dallas | J.R. Ewing | (pre-production) | |
| 2008 | Bolt | American Dog the Hound Dog | (voice only; pre-production) |
Salary
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Television work
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Music career
Discography
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Singles
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Further reading
- Brigitte Tast (ed.) John Travolta (Hildesheim/Germany 1978) ISBN 3-88842-103-9.
References
- ^ http://www.filmreference.com/film/50/John-Travolta.html
- ^ http://www.showbizireland.com/news/july01/20-travolta01.shtml
- ^ http://www.rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=26272&pageIndex=1
- ^ http://www.beatboxbetty.com/celebetty/johntravolta/johntravolta2/johntravolta2/johntravolta2.htm
- ^ http://www.hollywoodauditions.com/Biographies/john_travolta.htm
- ^ The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc, www.ellisisland.org. Ship's manifest for the Nord-America, 23 June 1904, line 10. Salvatore Travolta further stated that he was married and that his closest relative in the United States was his brother Giuseppe Travolta, who was living at 338 West 28th Street in New York City.
- ^ rotten tomatoes about "Battlefield Earth"
- ^ "biography of Diana Hyland". IMDB. Retrieved 2007-03-28.
External links
- John Travolta official homepage
- John Travolta at IMDb
- Template:Nndb name
- John Travolta links about John Travolta at dmoz the open directory
- John Travolta at Rotten Tomatoes
- 1954 births
- American actor-singers
- American aviators
- American film actors
- American television actors
- American male singers
- American musical theatre actors
- American pop singers
- American Scientologists
- Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film)
- Converts to Scientology
- Former Roman Catholics
- Hollywood Walk of Fame
- Irish-Americans
- Irish-American singers
- Italian-American actors
- Italian-American musicians
- Living people
- New Jersey actors
- People from Englewood, New Jersey
- Worst Actor Razzie