John Travolta

Biography: An American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease. Travolta?s acting career declined in the early 1980s and continued to deteriorate throughout the remainder of the decade. His career faced a resurgence in the 1990s with his role in Pulp Fiction, and he has since continued starring in Hollywood films including Face/Off, Ladder 49, and Wild Hogs. Travolta was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in Get Shorty.

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 American football player turned tyre salesman and partner in a tyre company. His mother, Helen Cecilia (nee 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, have all acted. His father was a second-generation Italian American and his mother was Irish American; he grew up in an Irish-American neighbourhood and has said that his household was predominantly Irish in culture. He was raised Roman Catholic, but converted to Scientology in 1975.

After attending Dwight Morrow High 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 to further his career in show business.

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 in 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. The show aired on ABC.

Around this time, Travolta 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 two of his most noted screen roles: Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever (1977) and as 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. At age 24, Travolta became one of the youngest performers ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. 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. 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.

After Urban Cowboy, Travolta starred in a string of flops that sidelined his acting career. These included Perfect, co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis, and Two of a Kind, a romantic comedy re-teaming him with Olivia Newton-John. During that time he was offered, but turned down, lead roles in what would become box office hits, including American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman, both of which went to Richard Gere.

Travolta was in a relationship with actress Diana Hyland, whom he met while filming The Boy in the Plastic Bubble; Hyland died of breast cancer in 1977.

Travolta has been married to actress Kelly Preston since 1991. The couple had a son, Jett (1992-2009). Their daughter, Ella Bleu, was born in 2000. Their son, Benjamin, was born on November 23, 2010 in Florida.

On January 2, 2009, their son, Jett, died while on their holiday vacation in The Bahamas. Travolta and Preston confirmed that their son had autism and suffered regular seizures.

Travolta and Preston have regularly attended marriage counselling; Travolta has stated that therapy has helped the marriage.

Travolta is a certified private pilot and owns five aircraft, including an ex-Qantas Boeing 707-138 airliner. The plane bears the name Jett Clipper Ella in 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.

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. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, joining other celebrities in helping with the relief efforts, Travolta flew his 707 full of supplies, doctors, and Scientologist Volunteer Ministers into the disaster area.

In June 2010, Travolta and Preston donated $10,000 to the Nelson Mandela Children?s Fund while on a trip to South Africa.

On January 2, 2009, Travolta and Preston?s son, Jett, died while on their holiday vacation in The Bahamas. On September 24, 2009, long a source of speculation, Travolta and Preston confirmed that their son had autism and suffered regular seizures.