John Joseph Travolta Biography

John Joseph Travolta was born on the 18th of February, 1954, in Englewood, New Jersey. His father, Salvatore, was a semi-pro footballer turned tyre salesman. His mother, Helen, was the entertainer in the family. She had played in a radio vocal group called The Sunshine Sisters, and had acted and directed before becoming a high school drama teacher. John also had five brothers and sisters - Joey and Sam, and Ellen, Ann and Margaret. All of them have worked in TV, film or music. This clearly had much to do with Helen's influence, but also Salvatore's who encouraged his children by assembling a small theatre in the family's basement. When John Travolta stepped up to play the Bill Clinton character in the supposedly true-to-life political drama Primary Colours, the coincidence was not lost on America's journalists. Clinton was known across the nation as The Comeback Kid and Travolta, in the previous four years, had achieved a return to prominence rarely paralleled in cinema's history. Having in the late Seventies been the biggest star on the planet, he'd spent the Eighties in a deep hole beneath the gutter. Now, suddenly, by an outrageous fluke of timing, he was a $20 million man, capable of carrying mediocre movies over the $100 million mark - a producer's dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald said there are no second acts in American lives. Irish-Italian ones clearly have three at least.Young John was very quick to make his career choice. His great loves all pointed him towards a life onstage. He loved The Beatles, and learned to play guitar. He loved to dance, winning a Twist competition at a very young age. And he loved James Cagney. So enamoured was he of acting that little Bone (so called because he was so skinny) actually joined an Actor's Workshop at age 12. Employing all his talents, he played in local musicals and worked in dinner theatre. He took tap lessons from Gene Kelly's brother, Fred, and picked up all the new steps from the groundbreaking TV show Soul Train. It wasn't all work. He rough-housed with the rest - that famous nose of his was originally broken while larking about in the pool. But, as said, his childhood hobbies were a preparation for what was to come.