| Early Life Travolta, the youngest of six children,was born and raised in Englewood, New Jersey, an inner-ring suburb of New York City. His father, Salvatore Travolta, was a semi-professional football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company.His mother, Helen Cecilia (nee Burke), who was 42 when Travolta was born, was an actress and singer who had appeared inThe Sunshine Sisters, a radio vocal group, and acted and directed before becoming a high school drama and English teacher. His father was a second-generation Italian Americanand his mother was Irish American. He grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood and has said that his household was predominantly Irish in culture. His family was Roman Catholic.  Early Career After attending Dwight Morrow High School, Travolta moved across the Hudson River to New York Cityand landed a role in the touring company of the musical Grease and on Broadway in singing the Sherman Brothers' song "Dream Drummin". He then moved to Los Angelesto further his career in show business. Travolta played a messenger on the CBS soap opera The Edge of Night. He also appeared on another CBS serial The Secret Storm. 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). 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) Danny Zuko in Grease(1978). These two 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 the youngest performers ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscarthough he lost to Richard Dreyfuss in The Goodbye Girl. 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. Staying Alive, the sequel toSaturday Night Fever, Perfect, co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis, and Two of A Kind, a romantic comedy reteaming him with Olivia Newton-John, were all commercial disasters severely beaten up by critics. 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 Gigilo, Flashdance, An Officer and a Gentlemen, Splash and Fatal Attraction. Disenchanted, Travolta pursued flying and eventually earned his license to command aircraft. His only hit film was Look Who's Talking with Kirstie Alley and a baby voiced by Bruce Willis.  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 Fictioninclude a movie-buff loan shark in Get Shorty (1995), an FBI agent/terrorist in Face/Off (1997), a desperate attorney in A Civil Action (1998), a Bill Clinton-esque presidential candidate in Primary Colors (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. The film won a Razzie Award for Worst Film of the Year at the 2000 Awards. Travolta, who joined 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.   Personal Life Travolta married actress Kelly Preston in 1991. The couple had two children: Jett, born on April 13, 1992 Ella Bleu, born in 2000. Their son, Jett died on January 2, 2009 while the family was on holiday 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 in early childhood.   Travolta is a certified pilot and owns five aircraft, including an ex-Australian Boeing 707-138 airliner. The plane bears the nameJett Clipper Ellain 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 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.  | ||||||||||
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