John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor. He became prominent during the 1970s, appearing on the television sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–1979) and starring in the box office successes Carrie (1976), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Grease (1978), and Urban Cowboy (1980). His acting career declined throughout the 1980s, but he enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s with his role in Pulp Fiction (1994), and went on to star in successful films including Get Shorty (1995), Broken Arrow (1996), Michael (1996), Phenomenon (1996), Face/Off (1997), The General's Daughter (1999), Wild Hogs (2007), Hairspray (2007), and Bolt (2008).
Travolta was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performances in Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction. He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his performance in Get Shorty and has received a total of six nominations, the most recent being in 2011. In 2014, he received the IIFA Award for Outstanding Achievement in International Cinema. In 2016, Travolta received his first Primetime Emmy Award, as a producer of the first season of the anthology series American Crime Story, subtitled The People v. O. J. Simpson. He also received an additional Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of lawyer Robert Shapiro in the series.
Outside of acting, Travolta is also a singer-songwriter. He has released nine albums, including four singles that have charted on the Billboard Hot 100's Top 40. His albums have been typically accompanied with films he has starred in, such as Grease: The Original Soundtrack from the Motion Picture (1978)–which topped the Billboard 200. Travolta is also a private pilot.
Early life
The youngest of six children, Travolta was born and raised in Englewood, New Jersey, an inner-ring suburb of New York City in Bergen County, New Jersey.
His father, Salvatore "Sam" Travolta was a semiprofessional American football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company, Travolta Tire Exchange. His mother, Helen Cecilia (née Burke) 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. His siblings Joey, Ellen, Ann, Margaret, and Sam Travolta were all inspired by their mother's love of theatre and drama and became actors. His father was a second-generation Sicilian American with roots in Godrano, Province of Palermo, and his mother was Irish American.
He grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood and said that his household was predominantly Irish in culture. He was raised Catholic, but later converted to Scientology in 1975 at age 21. Travolta attended Dwight Morrow High School, but dropped out as a junior at age 17 in 1971.
Career
Early career
After dropping out of school, 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'". He then moved to Los Angeles for professional reasons.
Travolta's first screen role in California was as a fall victim in Emergency! (Season 2, Episode 2) 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 that time, he landed his star-making role as Vinnie Barbarino in the ABC TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–1979), in which his sister, Ellen, also occasionally appeared (as Arnold Horshack's mother).
1970s stardom
Travolta had a hit single titled "Let Her In", peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in July 1976. In the next few years, he starred in the television movie 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). 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, making him, at age 24, one of the youngest performers ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. His mother and his sister Ann appeared very briefly in Saturday Night Fever and his sister Ellen played a waitress in Grease. Travolta performed on the Grease soundtrack album. After the failure of the romance Moment by Moment (1978) in which he starred with Lily Tomlin, Travolta rebounded in 1980, riding a nationwide country music craze that followed on the heels of his hit film Urban Cowboy, in which he starred with Debra Winger.