John Travolta

Travolta as Vinnie Barbarino in the ABC comedy Welcome Back, Kotter, c. 1976

After attending Dwight Morrow High School,[14] Travolta moved across the Hudson River to New York City and landed a role in the touring company of the musical Grease and on Broadway in Over Here!, singing the Sherman Brothers' song "Dream Drummin'."[15][16] He then moved to Los Angeles for professional reasons.

Travolta's first screen role in California was as a fall victim in Emergency! (S2E2), in September 1972,[17] 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).[18] Around the same time, he landed his star-making role as Vinnie Barbarino in the ABC TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–79), in which his sister, Ellen, also occasionally appeared (as Arnold Horshack's mother).[19]

Travolta had a hit single titled "Let Her In," peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in July 1976.[20][21][22] In the next few years, he starred in The Boy in the Plastic Bubble and two of his most noted screen roles: Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Danny Zuko in Grease (1978).[7] The films were among the most commercially successful pictures of the decade and catapulted Travolta to international stardom.[23] Saturday Night Fever earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor,[24] making him, at age 24, one of the youngest performers ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscar.[25] His mother and his sister Ann appeared very briefly in Saturday Night Fever and his sister Ellen played a waitress in Grease. Travolta performed several of the songs on the Grease soundtrack album.[26] 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.[27]

Travolta in 1983

After Urban Cowboy, Travolta starred in a series of commercial and critical failures that sidelined his acting career. These included Two of a Kind (1983), a romantic comedy reteaming him with Olivia Newton-John, and Perfect (1985), co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis. He also starred in Staying Alive, the 1983 sequel to Saturday Night Fever, for which he trained rigorously and lost 20 pounds;[28] the film was a financial success, grossing over $65 million, though it, too, was scorned by critics.

During that time, Travolta was offered, but declined, lead roles in what would become box-office hits, including American Gigolo[29] and An Officer and a Gentleman, both of which went to Richard Gere.[30]

Travolta in 1997

In 1989, Travolta starred with Kirstie Alley in Look Who's Talking, which grossed $297 million, making it his most successful film since Grease. Next came 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 (1994), with Samuel L. Jackson, for which he received an Academy Award nomination, that his career revived.[7][31][32] 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 (1995), a corrupt U.S. Air Force pilot in Broken Arrow, an FBI agent and terrorist in Face/Off (1997), a desperate attorney in A Civil Action (1998), a Bill Clinton–esque presidential candidate in Primary Colors (1998),[7] and a military investigator in The General's Daughter (1999).

In 2000, Travolta starred in and co-produced the science fiction film Battlefield Earth, based on the novel of the same name 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 had been a dream project for Travolta since the book's release in 1982, when Hubbard had personally written him to try to help make a film adaptation.[33] The film received almost universally negative reviews and did very poorly at the box office.[34] Travolta's performance in Battlefield Earth also earned him two Razzie Awards.

Throughout the 2000s, Travolta remained busy as an actor, starring in many films, including Swordfish (2001); Ladder 49 (2004); Be Cool (2005); Lonely Hearts (2006); Wild Hogs (2007); the animated film Bolt (2008), in which Travolta voiced the title character; The Taking of Pelham 123; and Old Dogs (both 2009).

In 2007, Travolta played Edna Turnblad in the remake of Hairspray, his first musical since Grease.[35]

Since 2010, Travolta has starred mostly in action films and thrillers. In 2016, he returned to TV in the first season of the anthology series American Crime Story, titled The People v. O. J. Simpson, in which he played lawyer Robert Shapiro.[36]

On January 2, 2009, Travolta's son Jett died at age 16 while on a Christmas vacation in the Bahamas.[44][45] A Bahamian death certificate was issued, attributing the cause of death to a seizure.[46] Jett, who had a history of seizures, reportedly suffered from Kawasaki disease since the age of two.[47][48] Travolta confirmed speculation that his son had autism and suffered regular seizures and immediately made his public statements while giving testimony after a multimillion-dollar extortion plot against him in connection with his son's death.[49] After a mistrial, Travolta dropped the charges and has credited his immediate family and Scientology with helping him survive the death of his son and in moving forward with his film career.[50][51][52] In memory of his son, Travolta created the Jett Travolta Foundation, a nonprofit organization to help children with special needs.[53] It has contributed to organizations such as the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.[54]

Travolta has been a practitioner of Scientology since 1975, when he was given the book Dianetics while filming the movie The Devil's Rain in Durango, Mexico.[55] After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, joining other celebrities in helping with the relief efforts, Travolta reportedly flew his Boeing 707 full of supplies, doctors, and Scientologist Volunteer Ministers into the disaster area.[56]

Travolta in 2002, in the cockpit of his Boeing 707

Travolta is a private pilot[57][58] and owns four aircraft. This excludes the ex-Qantas Boeing 707-138B (Ex-VH-EBM) that he owned. In 2017, the plane was donated to the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) near Wollongong, Australia, and is expected to be flown to Australia in November 2019.[59] Travolta plans to be on board when the aircraft is flown to Illawarra Regional Airport, where HARS is based, however will not be allowed to fly it, because it will be registered as an Australian aircraft.[59] The 707 aircraft bears an old livery of Qantas, and Travolta acted as an official goodwill ambassador for the airline wherever he flew.[60] Travolta named his 707 "Jett Clipper Ella," in honor of his children. The "Clipper" in the name represents that Pan Am used that word in the names of their aircraft.[61]

His estate in Ocala, Florida, is situated at Jumbolair Airport with its own runway and taxiway right to his house, with two outbuildings for covered access to planes.[57][62]

On November 24, 1992, Travolta was piloting his Gulfstream N728T at night above a solid undercast when he experienced a total electrical system failure while flying under instrument flight rules into Washington National Airport. During the emergency landing, he almost had a mid-air collision with a USAir Boeing 727, an event attributed to a risky decision by an air traffic controller.[63]

Travolta was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation in 2007 and acts as the award show's official ambassador.[64]

On September 13, 2010, during the first episode of the final season of her talk show, Oprah Winfrey announced that she would be taking her entire studio audience on an eight-day, all-expenses-paid trip to Australia, with Travolta serving as pilot for the trip. He had helped Winfrey plan the trip for more than a year.[65]

He is the author of the book Propeller One-Way Night Coach, the story of a young boy's first flight.[66]