Original subtitles

In the 1970s, John Travolta was Hollywood's prince of cool -

hip-swivelling heart-throb,

star of '70s hits Saturday Night Fever...

When he commanded that light-up dance floor,

John Travolta was very, very cool.

..and Grease.

With the hips, with the swagger, with the wobble in his voice,

I mean, he really is a rock and roll king.

He saw a meteoric rise to fame, and the world was at his dancing feet.

People were screaming, pushing.

When he came out of the car they were pulling his hair.

On the back of Grease, the world was his oyster.

But, for every stratospheric high...

Everybody wanted to be John Travolta. Everybody.

..came a devastating low.

He actually said he didn't think he would recover.

He didn't think he'd even come out of his bedroom.

And, as he fell out of fashion, a career in freefall...

Four or five years, to go from being the biggest movie star

on the planet to being someone that no-one wants to hire.

..threatened to wipe him off the map.

Do you want him in your movie? Is he going to make you money?

No, not really.

In this programme, we reveal how Travolta has survived

the roller-coaster of his career, and a personal life ravaged

by tragedy, to return triumphant, the king of the comeback.

That is the greatest comeback of all time.

With incredible access to those close to him - his dance coach...

He knew from the very beginning

that the music and the dance were the movie.

..his co-stars...

The entire place converged on us, and we were like,

"Oh, my God!" It was out of body.

..his director...

He would call me late at night to ask me about which take I printed.

..and his close friend.

It was in those moments that I think he was lonely.

Even with people around.

This is the story of a man whose every success

came alongside relentless personal heartache,

and of the survival against the odds

of a living Hollywood legend.

MUSIC: Stayin' Alive by Bee Gees

It's December 1977, and the world has caught Saturday Night Fever.

In the opening sequence of the film,

John Travolta struts his way onto the big screen.

That opening scene starts with the shoes, and it's fine.

There's a guy who's got a little strut going on, and the camera

pans up, and it gets to his face,

and you just think, who is this guy? You are already riveted.

He's got this swagger, he's got this red collar,

there's the leather jacket.

His shoes are perfect.

It's like an arrival. It's not an entrance.

It's an arrival.

The film launched Travolta into global stardom

and won him an Oscar nomination.

But behind this smouldering performance,

he was in the throes of grief.

During the filming of Saturday Night Fever,

his girlfriend died in his arms.

And then he had to fly back to New York and go on to the set

of Saturday Night Fever almost as if nothing had happened.

Travolta was 23. The world was at his feet.

Yet, this devastating tragedy was the first of a series

of heartbreaking losses that would scar his life.

For every dizzying career high,

there would come a crushing personal low.

How did he survive this roller-coaster

of success and tragedy?

Let's rewind to the very beginning.

- NEWSREEL: - Across the Hudson River from New York City

is the city of Englewood.

Attractive suburban homes, with their neat lawns.

John Joseph Travolta was born in 1954 in Englewood, New Jersey.

He had an Irish-Italian background.

He grew up kind of like a regular kid.

His father was a semi-professional football player,

but his father also ended up having a tyre store.

His mother Helen had been an actress.

She was the big influence on their family.

She taught theatre, she taught dancing,

and she brought the culture into the Travolta house.

Not only his mother was a great

influence, but his sisters.

And his brothers as well, but it... You know, they were performers.

They would do plays, they would sing, they would dance.

It was the fun dynamic.

Travolta was the youngest of six.

He was the runt of the litter. He was always taken care of.

There was something about John that made you want to protect him.

He was a vulnerable, sensitive person,

and so you just wanted to, you know, hug him...

..and take care of him, make sure he was OK.

His childhood gave him a love of acting.

He also developed a passion for flying.

The house he was brought up in in New Jersey

was actually under the flight path of the local airport,

and he loved going out into the back yard

and looking up at those jets thundering overhead.

He would wonder who was on those planes, what they were eating,

what they were doing, where they were sitting.

I think John's love affair with flying kind of came out of that.

After leaving school at 16,

Travolta went to New York to pursue his acting ambitions.

A year later, he secured a meeting with casting director Joel Thurm.

Part of my job was just to meet people.

I mean, you could meet five people a day,

but there's one person who's going to stand out.

John came into the room full of everything.

He was intelligent, he was gorgeous,

he had a sense of humour, he was polite.

I mean, all the things that you want.

His big-screen debut came in 1975, in a low-budget,

low-quality horror called The Devil's Rain.

THUNDERCLAP

There's never been anything like...

- THUNDERCLAP - ..The Devil's Rain.

Travolta's character only had a couple of lines.

The plot made very little sense.

On set in Mexico, he was disillusioned.

On Devil's Rain, John found himself isolated,

a long way from home, bit miserable.

This wasn't a glamorous film shoot.

But there was one familiar face.

Joan Prather, who he had met on Broadway.

She was a Scientologist.

This reunion would lead to a life-changing experience.

Joan Prather performed a process on John

in order to get him into the church of Scientology.

John described it as being outside his own body.

It became a spiritual experience for him.

For Travolta, whose self-confidence was low,

it was an introduction that had a huge impact.

I think most people know that Scientology,

when they come to you and say, "We have all the answers in life,"

realise that that can't be true,

but, you know, for somebody like Travolta

at that point in his life, it was something he liked to hear.

Now living in California, Travolta started attending

the LA Scientology Celebrity Centre,

where he experienced what seemed to be the power of Scientology.

I've talked to a woman who was his course supervisor there,

and one day he told her

that he had an audition for a new television series.

So, she had everybody in the class stand up,

face towards the studio where the audition was going to happen,

and do in Scientology what they call a postulate.

They all focus their thoughts on that studio,

hoping for a good result for John.

And she said, sure enough, a couple of weeks later,

he came back to the course and told them that he had landed

the role on this new show about some high school kids in New York.

That show was Welcome Back Kotter,

and it brought John Travolta into the living rooms of America.

Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs was Travolta's co-star.

I played Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington,

who was the cool brother, and John Travolta played Barbarino,

who was supposed to be this suave Italian stallion.

The first thing you got to do is the Vinnie Barbarino look.

OK? Your hair, for instance.

Very casual.

It should look like it's being blown by unseen winds.

Even though Mr Kotter was originally what the whole show was about,

it soon became apparent that people were more interested

in Vinnie Barbarino.

He was cool, charming, cheeky, always getting into scrapes,

but kind of could charm his way out of things.

And it was an instant explosion. People went crazy for it.

He was getting more fan mail than the rest of the cast combined.

John Travolta was the face on every girl's bedroom wall.

We decided to go to get something to eat,

and the entire place converged on us.

And we were like, "Oh, my God!" It was out of body.

Thousands of fans would show up when he would do a signing.

I remember one he did in Chicago,

and they expected a few hundred people, and 10,000 people showed up.

In less than a year, Travolta had become a household name,

and a teen idol.

The attention was overwhelming,

as he described on TV show American Bandstand.

The other night, I went to a discotheque.

Now, I forgot that I'm on the series, right?

And they weren't going to let me in, and the bouncer there said,

"Oh, my God!" He said, "You're Vinny Barbarino, aren't you?"

- LAUGHTER - I started dancing, and I forgot that

all the crowds and people were watching me dance and stuff.

And I got pinched more than... I got pinched.

I mean, I felt like a girl.

We went to Disneyland.

This was pretty early on, and it was a time when he was being,

you know, recognised a lot.

And so John had on a disguise.

He had on a funny nose and glasses and hat.

And we were around, and it was working.

Nobody was recognising him.

And, as the day wore on, little bits and pieces

of the disguise started to come off.

You know, first the glasses and then the moustache,

and then of course people started to recognise him.

Things happened over those few months incredibly fast.

He went from being unknown to being

someone who had to disguise himself to walk in the street.

As Travolta's rise continued,

it seemed his personal life was also falling into place.

On the set of a TV film called The Boy In The Plastic Bubble,

he met fellow actor Diana Hyland.

She was 18 years older than him.

For Travolta, this relationship offered something familiar.

Family is very important to John.

Diana was the complete package.

She also came with a child,

and John became sort of like a father figure to that boy.

Travolta's seemingly unstoppable ascent would continue,

and a year later, he would get his big Hollywood break

in the disco hit Saturday Night Fever.

Everybody wanted to be John Travolta. Everybody.

But, in a cruel twist of fate, a tragic loss would leave him

devastated just as he reached new career heights.

None of this was in the script.

Those were real tears, because of how he was feeling at the time.

In 1977, John Travolta was living the life

he'd dreamed of since childhood.

He was star of the TV series that had made him a household name,

and his success was about to step up a gear.

He landed a three-picture deal with a major Hollywood producer.

People saw the success that he had with Welcome Back, Kotter,

and it was obvious that producers were going to go,

"Hang on. He's something special."

He was not your typical film star.

He had such an interesting face, an Irish-Italian kid who was

kind of, in a way, goofy-looking and handsome at the same time.

The first film to be made, about the New York disco scene,

would propel Travolta to new heights.

- MUSIC: - Stayin' Alive by Bee Gees

Would you just watch the hair?

Dancing, it can't last forever.

It's a short-lived kind of thing.

You know how many times somebody told me I was good in my life?

Two. Twice.

MUSIC: Disco Inferno by The Trammps

He's very good, huh?

- He's the best. - Hey, man, he's great. He's great.

Keen to give it his all, Travolta started training for the role

while still shooting TV show Welcome Back, Kotter.

He was beyond excited, nervous, crazy.

You know, "Wow, I can't believe this is happening. I want to do my best."

The afternoon after Welcome Back, Kotter,

he would go jogging, and take me with him, so we would jog

around Hollywood High School all the time, and then they would go off

into rehearsals, where he would work with Deney Terrio.

Deney Terrio was a competitive dancer and real-life king of disco.

He got the job of coaching Travolta.

I had been winning all the dance contests in California.

Singles, couples.... And that's how I made my living.

So, they hired me to train John how to do that form of dance.

Determined to give it his best shot, Travolta threw himself

into a gruelling five months of dance training.

When I first got the job, I was like, "This might be difficult."

He said, "I already know how to dance."

So, I put some music on and I said, "Well, let's see, John,"

and he started dancing. And I said, "OK, that's all right,"

and I sat him down, and I said, "but this is what I want to teach you."

And I put my music on and I started doing the knee drops

and the splits, and the Russian leap and the point,

and he just looked at me and said, "Oh, I gotta learn that."

Deney took Travolta out dancing.

He could not believe the atmosphere.

He fell in love with the disco,

and people dressing up in the suits, and their hair done.

And it was the process of teaching him the way of life, of that life.

John's absolute dedication to preparing for the role

would become a hallmark of his career.

He'll work on a character until it's...

..it goes from the page into his being.

And then he can be totally free to be someone who he's not.

And that's when he feels like he can do his best acting.

There was no stopping him.

He knew, I think, from the very beginning, that the music

and the dance were the movie.

Five months with Deney had paid off,

and Travolta was ready to start filming on location in New York.

But there was something missing from the script

that he was determined to put right.

John Travolta felt that his character is meant to be this great

star dancer, but yet, in the script, there was no solo dance for him.

So, he pushed for that.

- He's saying, "Look, I trained for ages for this. - Let's show it off."

For a guy in his first major movie role to be making those demands,

at the time, was probably a little bit of a shock.

He was definitely a perfectionist.

I think sometimes people thought he might have been difficult.

But he just wanted to get it right. His instincts were good.

The result was an iconic movie moment.

The scene where John Travolta does his solo dance,

clears the dance floor to You Could Be Dancing, by the Bee Gees,

it's one of the most memorable scenes in the whole movie.

When he commanded that light-up dance floor,

John Travolta was very, very cool.

# What you doin' on your back?

# What you doin' on your back?

# You should be dancing, yeah... #

And there's an emoji out

of the point that John did in Saturday Night Fever.

Are we talking staying power, or what?

But as Travolta was filming the movie that would make his name,

his personal life was in crisis.

His girlfriend Diana had been diagnosed with cancer.

She absolutely loved him. You know, and he worshipped her.

He looked up to her.

He had to go from being a caring partner to someone who was dying

of cancer to being a cocky, streetwise disco boy

in Saturday Night Fever.

John spent every spare moment away from set with Diana,

until March, 1977.

She actually died in his arms, and then he had to get

back on that aeroplane, fly back to New York and go on to the set

of Saturday Night Fever, almost as if nothing had happened.

It was...awful.

It was awful.

The highest of highs and the lowest of lows, you know?

When it happened, you know, my heart dropped.

I can't imagine what it was like for him.

Devastated by this tragic loss,

but contractually obliged to keep filming, Travolta returned to set.

He was in a very, very tender state.

He was described as a zombie by his director.

But was obviously a broken man,

was obviously incredibly hurt by it,

and in mourning.

But he still had to make the movie.

Travolta's pain is clear in a scene

with his on-screen girlfriend, Stephanie.

They're on a park bench overlooking a New York bridge,

and he's beginning the scene by discussing how it got built.

They got 40 million cars going across there a year.

And with the on-ramps,

that altogether totals something like two and one half miles.

But then Stephanie kisses him, and there's a welling up in his eyes.

None of this was in the script. Those were real tears.

Those were real tears coming from John Travolta

because of how he was feeling at the time.

Travolta's moving performance in Saturday Night Fever

won him worldwide acclaim.

John Travolta went on to win an Academy Award nomination

for Best Actor for his performance in Saturday Night Fever,

and I believe that's not just because he can dance very well.

He really displayed a level of vulnerability

and humanity in this role.

He made you care about a character who, really,

apart from dancing, didn't have anything going for him.

There was no other actor who could have played that role

and carried it off like John Travolta did. None.

It's Travolta's movie.

Everybody wanted to be John Travolta. Everybody.

And it just catapulted him into a new level.

Now he was a movie star.

At the age of only 23,

Travolta had already experienced incredible success

and heartbreaking tragedy.

In 1978, he was interviewed on TV show Up Close.

He was asked about his similarity

to his character in Saturday Night Fever.

Are you as vulnerable as he?

- Yes. - Yeah? - Absolutely.

How do you deal with that in this town? I mean, in the middle

of Hollywood, the movie-making, television business and so forth?

I don't do too much. I don't go out very much.

I work, basically.

And I don't really party

or meet a whole lot of people.

I think that fragility is something that he's kept through his life,

but I think that's what audiences see,

and they become attracted to him because of it.

He's vulnerable. You can see that vulnerability,

that any minute he's going to shed a tear.

There was something about John that made you want to protect him.

Kate Edwards and her mother worked with John in the 1970s,

and they became close personal friends.

I think we all adopted one another.

It was just a sort of instant kind of a connection

with me and my mum and my grandma. Just our whole family.

I think it was our normalcy, maybe.

We became like family.

He was like my brother.

You know, it was really... It was great.

As Travolta's fame skyrocketed,

he created a circle of those he trusted.

I think, because of the fame,

and everybody wanting bits and pieces of him,

it became harder to trust people, and people's motives.

So, the people that tended to be,

sort of, his extended family were people that had known him before.

That was the safe haven.

And despite the lack of privacy that came with fame,

Travolta still found ways to let his hair down.

He would come to our house, unannounced, at night,

knocking on the door,

"Come on, you guys, let's go to Palm Springs."

And he'd have a wad of money and a toothbrush in a brown paper bag,

and we'd get in the car, my mum, my grandma and I and the dogs,

and go to Palm Springs and spend the weekend.

And there was so much fun and so much laughter,

and that's, I think, how John coped.

Travolta's star was on the rise,

but he still hadn't reached his pinnacle.

Another smash hit.

# Go, greased lightnin', you're burnin' up the quarter mile

# Greased lightnin' Go, greased lightnin'... #

The girls love him, the guys want to be him.

He's oozing sex appeal.

He just seemed untouchable, where he could do no wrong.

And yet, another crushing low was just around the corner.

She hadn't told him that she'd been diagnosed has having cancer.

In 1977, John Travolta lost the love of his life, Diana Hyland,

to cancer, just as his career in Hollywood was taking off.

He was still in deep mourning,

and was about to embark on the filming of his next movie.

John Travolta.

Olivia Newton-John.

Grease.

John Travolta, the sensational star of Saturday Night Fever,

ignites the screen.

John plays Danny Zuko, who is the coolest guy in school.

Everyone looks up to him, everyone thinks he's amazing.

Leader of the gang, the T-Birds.

That's cool, baby.

I mean, you know how it is, rocking and rolling and whatnot.

What's the matter with you?

What's the matter with me, baby? What's the matter with you?

The girls love him, the guys want to be him.

He's oozing sex appeal, but he's also vulnerable,

and he's trying to impress.

This role wasn't entirely new to him.

John Travolta had previously been in the stage production of this show,

and he'd played Doody, one of the lesser characters.

And now he got the chance to be Danny Zuko,

and that's the role you want.

After his emotional performance in Saturday Night Fever,

this film was more upbeat.

So, a lot of the ups and downs, dramatically speaking,

weren't required. And this must have been a complete relief to him

after the emotional roller-coaster ride of Saturday Night Fever.

It was a musical. He didn't have to show his heartbreak.

He didn't have to show his anger.

Instead, Travolta showed some slick moves and smooth vocals.

# Took her bowling in the arcade... #

I think Summer Nights is one of the best movie songs ever.

And, that was, like, one of the first things we shot.

I mean, but everything he did in the movie was good. Everything.

- # Well, she got friendly, down in the sand... - #

He's really got swagger. He's really got style.

That's the dancing highlight of the movie, for me.

- # Tell me more, tell me more - Could she get me a friend? #

Despite his slick performance, Travolta was anxious

and was having trouble sleeping.

He wanted to make sure that anything he did was really, really

as good as it could be. He was a perfectionist, I'd say.

To the extent that he would call me, late at night,

to ask me about which take I printed,

and to discuss the next day's work.

And I didn't have insomnia, so it was a bit annoying.

I think he could tell that I was very sleepy,

and he finally got the message not to call me late at night.

Travolta was filming Grease only 12 weeks after the tragic death

of his girlfriend, Diana Hyland.

As a way of coping, he had thrown himself into work.

There wasn't enough room in his head to mourn or grieve

during the shooting of Grease. There was just so much going on.

And rehearsing the dance numbers, doing the singing tracks,

and then practising that...

You know, there's no way to just sit around and worry.

But, during the shoot, Travolta received a painful reminder.

He took a break, and that's when the People magazine cover came out

that talked about that.

He'd done an interview with People,

and they had said they weren't going to emphasise that.

It was a bit exploitational about his relationship with Diana,

and his face kind of got white,

because he had been promised they wouldn't do that.

I could see that it upset him that they had betrayed him there,

but he went back into the stage

and just threw himself into it again, and gave it all.

While Travolta's heartbreak didn't show on screen, in 1978,

the year Grease was released, he opened up to interviewer

David Frost about his relationship with Diana.

You know, that was one,

one relationship that happened to fill many of my needs.

And I hope again that a relationship

could again fill a lot of those needs.

You know, that doesn't happen, maybe, very often in anyone's life,

so, I mean, the idea that it's happened once

already in my life is pretty good, I think.

Now, if it could happen again that would be lovely.

You said, until then, you'd thought that you might never have

a successful relationship with anyone.

Yes, that's true, because it had not really happened up until then.

And then this relationship came along and became a sort of...

You know, when least expected, it sort of just fulfilled me.

Did you feel the fates were cruel, in a way,

when she was taken from you?

Yes. Erm...

But even more for her, I think, than for me.

Despite his grief, John delivered hit after hit.

Why, it could be greased lightnin'.

John's quintessential performance in Grease was Greased Lightning.

# Get some overhead lifters And four-barrel quads, oh yeah

# Keep talking Whoa, keep talking... #

It's raunchy, it's masculine, it's funny.

Has a great beat. You can dance to it.

# Go, go, go Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go

# Go, greased lightnin', you're burning up the quarter-mile

# Greased lightnin' Go, greased lightnin'

# Go, greased lightnin'

# You're coasting through the heat lap trials... #

It's a wonderful performance.

It was his idea to come down sitting on the engine block.

They didn't want to do that.

They thought it was going to break and he was going to kill himself.

It's a real moment for John to show off, with the hips,

with the swagger, with the wobble in his voice.

I mean, he really is a rock and roll king in that scene.

Travolta filmed Grease in the summer of 1977, and temperatures soared.

For the dance contest scene,

this posed an unusual challenge for him and the cast.

We were next to a slaughterhouse, and it was August,

there was no air conditioning, and the smell of dead pigs

infiltrated the room while we were shooting,

and everyone was sweating, and it smelled horrible.

But when we ran the cameras, they, bam, jumped right up into it.

That stuffy, stuffy smelly hot gym

just broke into magic when we ran the cameras.

Grease was released a mere six months

after Saturday Night Fever, and was another huge hit.

Paramount didn't have great hopes for Grease,

but actually it was a huge success

and ended up becoming the second most successful musical ever.

Just as Fever-mania was dying off, Grease came out and took over.

So, there was no real escape from John Travolta,

over quite a short period of time.

As a teen star, it made him bigger than ever.

Because this was a more child/teen-friendly movie

than Saturday Night Fever.

So, Grease was even bigger than Saturday Night Fever

at the box office, because it was just available to more people.

The PG film premiered in London in June, 1978.

Travolta was unprepared for the fans' enthusiasm.

Well, we went to England,

and had the premiere there in Leicester Square.

By that time, he was a gigantic star,

probably the biggest star in the world at that moment.

And there was a mob scene outside Leicester Square.

We were in cars pulling up,

and the crowd was rocking the cars back and forth.

People were screaming, pushing.

When he came out of the car they were pulling his hair.

And when we got out of it, we had to push our way through.

The crowd was pushing him around like that,

and people were trying to grab John's hair and his clothes.

And when we got into the lobby, he was just shaking,

because he was... It was so scary.

Travolta now had two huge global hits under his belt.

He was certainly in a position, after the success of Grease,

where he just seemed untouchable, where he could do no wrong.

On the back of Grease, the world was his oyster.

It's as though all of Hollywood was at his feet.

He could, at that moment in time, have done anything.

I'm on top of the world. What could go wrong?

But, once again, stratospheric success

would coincide with devastating tragedy.

When Travolta took his mother to the Oscars in 1978,

he knew she was ill, but she was keeping a secret.

Helen was incredibly protective towards him.

Even when she went to the Oscar ceremony with John,

following his success in Saturday Night Fever,

she didn't tell him she had cancer.

She knew what he'd been through with the death of Diana Hyland

only 18 months earlier, and she wanted to protect him.

It was always her priority, was to protect John.

Her cancer was terminal.

As her illness progressed, Travolta found ways to keep her spirits up.

We would go and visit Helen almost every day.

There was one particular day I remember very well,

where John and I went to the hospital

and we did song and dance numbers

all afternoon for his mum.

You know? Because she was from musical theatre.

And we would sing and we would dance

and we would make her laugh, and...

I treasure that memory, actually.

She was a lovely woman.

Eight months later, Helen Travolta died.

Helen's death left a huge void in John Travolta's life.

This was the woman, the mother, who analysed his career,

who went through all his scripts with him,

who encouraged him to be an actor in the first place.

I think he was pleased that his mother got to see

that he was nominated for an Oscar,

but the huge holes in his heart...

You know, how do you fix that?

I have a picture of him...

I think we were in the Grand Canyon, and he was just sitting on a rock.

I knew who he was missing.

It was in those moments that I think he was lonely,

you know, even with people around.

He was... There was a lonely part inside.

All of the outside success doesn't fill up

that inner emptiness,

no matter how big the success is.

Travolta was devastated by these losses.

After a stellar start to his career, all eyes were on his next move.

Travolta accepted another lead role, but got cold feet.

He basically quit. They were willing to shut down and wait for him,

but he just pulled out of it.

And as a new decade dawned,

his roller-coaster career would plummet to an all-time low.

The bubble had to burst

because he just couldn't keep up this level of success.

In the 1970s, John Travolta had seen a meteoric rise to fame

in two mega-hits, Saturday Night Fever and Grease.

But as the '70s drew to a close, the decade that had launched him

into superstardom was swiftly falling out of fashion.

Do you want to be connected

with that particular moment in time, forever?

It's a blessing and a curse having a mega-hit on your hands.

By the time it got to '78, '79, people were burning disco records.

People were smashing disco records.

"I hate disco" became a thing.

If you play a role where you're the world's most famous disco dancer,

and then disco goes out of fashion, well,

there's always the danger that you might go out of fashion as well.

Travolta had experienced the devastating losses

of both his girlfriend and his beloved mother to cancer.

He was still tied to a three-picture deal,

and, after Saturday Night Fever and Grease,

he was contractually obliged to make a third film.

It broke his winning streak.

The third of his three-picture deal with Paramount

was a pretty poor film called Moment By Moment.

John Travolta.

Do you remember me?

Lily Tomlin.

I'm sure I don't.

Two special people...

Did you remember me?

Yes, I remembered you.

Oh, I thought so. Good.

..in a very special film.

It just didn't work.

I think that sort of took the wind out of the sails.

It didn't do him any good, because he'd made two

very big-grossing films, suddenly he makes one that isn't so good.

That was a flop. And he was kind of sad about that.

He was pretty depressed.

The negative response to Moment By Moment

further dented Travolta's already shaky confidence.

He took the criticism of Moment By Moment very personally,

and maybe somebody who was a bit older might have been able to

tackle it more, but on top of that he'd had the blows of people

dying around him, and I think it all combined.

It was like a perfect storm of grief and failure,

and he found it very difficult to handle.

Travolta felt intense pressure to live up to his earlier successes.

I mean, you're lucky in a career if you get one film that does

what Saturday Night Fever or Grease...

It just doesn't happen.

So, to have that bar

to constantly keep aspiring to

kind of gets debilitating.

So, you don't want to make a decision.

There were some roles on the horizon with the potential

to keep him at the top.

He was offered a script called An Officer And A Gentleman,

and he was supposed to be the lead, and he turned it down.

That was one where, I think, the rest of us were like,

"We really like this."

There's just something about it that he didn't...he didn't see.

Travolta had another reason for not taking the part,

as he explained in a 1995 interview.

Now, Officer And A Gentleman was a different thing,

because I was studying to be a jet pilot, and my life...

And jet school was important?

And jet school was personally important to me.

So, I chose life over a film.

He hadn't finished his pilot training.

So, you know, "I'm not sure I want to do An Officer And A Gentleman,

"so I think I'm going to let someone else

"sweep Debra Winger off her feet."

That someone else was an up-and-coming actor called

Richard Gere, who took the role after John Travolta turned it down.

Richard Gere obviously became the breakout star of the '80s,

but that's also because he starred in films

in which Travolta was due to star.

This wasn't the only role that Travolta rejected

that went to Richard Gere.

He basically quit American Gigolo.

They were willing to shut down and wait for him,

but he just pulled out of it.

He just felt like he couldn't do it justice in that moment

and he begged Paramount to let him out of doing that film.

Which they said yes to, but in order to say yes,

they wanted to have his next two pictures.

This agreement left him contractually bound to Paramount,

but Travolta didn't like the roles they were offering.

And then it just seemed to get longer and longer between projects,

and when that happens, I think it gets harder to make a decision

as to what you want to do, because so much attention

is going to be placed on it. You don't want to make a mistake.

It's a bad time for him.

He kept turning down good opportunities,

and the opportunities he did take didn't work, didn't connect.

Further to this, all of the uncool worries were piling up.

This is the Grease guy.

You know, this is the disco guy.

Do you want him in your movie?

Is he going to make you money? No, not really.

In a 1995 interview,

Travolta revealed how his lack of confidence held him back.

I don't have a lot of interest in fighting for myself.

I'll fight for my family, I'll fight for my religion,

I'll fight for what I believe in, but when it comes to fighting

for scripts, I really do need someone else to be

in there fighting for me.

If you had other big actors at the same table with me and we were

all vying for the same job, I would talk you into using them.

Because I'm not comfortable...

With his career now in freefall, he was finding it hard to cope.

He's talked about depression. It's understandable.

I mean, it was all going so well, and then it wasn't.

He became a joke.

And it all happened so quickly.

Finally, Paramount offered a script that Travolta agreed to.

It was to be directed by Rocky star Sylvester Stallone.

They obviously wanted him to do a sequel to Saturday Night Fever,

that he kept shying away from and shying away from,

but in order to fulfil that obligation to Paramount,

eventually he decided to do it.

Travolta revisited the role of the maturing Tony Manero.

It was going to put him in the spotlight again.

Even if the movie wasn't that great, it would get a lot of press,

because it was a sequel to a massive success.

And maybe John thought that's what people want to see him doing.

To reprise a character that people know and love

can be box office gold.

You are not the greatest dancer to ever hit Broadway.

What you have is anger and a certain intensity,

and that's what I need to make this show work.

It is everything that's bad about the '80s in many ways.

I think it's hugely kitsch.

It's a lot of writhing around in leotards.

A very, very strange film.

As he had with Saturday Night Fever, Travolta threw himself

into preparing for the role.

The work he put into Staying Alive was huge,

and I think Travolta really liked that element of that film,

and the training that he had to do to get in shape.

I went to the set to visit him there, to say hello,

and he was so buffed up, and I didn't recognise him.

I was looking around, "Where's John?"

The film did well at the box office,

but did nothing to boost Travolta's kudos as an actor.

The weird thing about Staying Alive is that it's not actually

that long after Saturday Night Fever.

But so much had changed. Disco had gone out of fashion,

John Travolta had gone out of fashion.

Backward steps for him personally, because he was back to playing

that sort of character he was trying to get away from.

He wanted to be known as an actor, you know, not as a dancer.

He loved the dancing, but he was an actor.

He learned to dance because he was a great actor,

and I think, in the '80s, he was really trying to get away from that.

He was searching for the new John Travolta.

His search continued.

In 1984, he took a role in a film called Perfect.

I would gladly take one of your aerobic classes

if you let me interview you.

I was really beginning to like you, too.

Perfect is about an undercover journalist,

played by John Travolta, who is required to go into aerobics classes

run by Jamie Lee Curtis's character, as some kind of investigation.

And so therefore he must dress up in short shorts, and thrust a lot.

The look on his face is amazing.

He's just really into it.

He's really enjoying it.

So, yeah, the shorts are scarily short, though.

Wow. What was everybody thinking? You know?

Despite Travolta's enthusiasm, the film was a flop.

His career had now hit rock-bottom.

I remember that John did say that picking non-hit movies was

a bad habit of his.

He did a string of really, really bad unprofitable movies.

So what happened to him happens to everybody.

You do a bunch of bad movies,

your stock goes down, and nobody wants you.

This is probably four or five years, to go from being the biggest

movie star on the planet to being someone that no-one wants to hire.

That, of course, is going to affect him.

He wants to impress people,

and he wants to show people what he can do,

and he wasn't being allowed to.

But, despite his failing career,

Travolta was given a chance to shine in 1985, by Royal appointment.

He went to the White House for a Presidential dinner,

and it was strongly suggested to him that Princess Diana,

who was also in attendance,

would very much like him to ask her to dance.

John, are you going to dance with the Princess tonight?

If she'd like me to.

It was a really extraordinary moment,

and it was photographed and shown around the world.

When I saw him dance with Princess Diana,

he had a glow about him.

His face was glowing.

He was smiling.

And, it was almost like he had always wanted to do this.

That was a high point for him. He loved her.

She had that vulnerability that he had.

He had had unhappiness with the losses in his life,

she wasn't happy at that period of time.

I imagine that they had a lot in common.

Really touchingly, actually, Travolta has commented on

that moment as being a real highlight in an otherwise fairly dire career decade for him.

After this brief burst of global stardom,

it would be another four years before Travolta's next film.

To cope with this low period, he took to the skies.

If he's ever having a bad day, he'll go fly a plane.

He said that's what keeps him sane.

I think there's a nostalgia that goes with it.

And, there's a romance that goes with it.

Back in the '60s when he was a boy, flying was romantic.

You know, you got dressed up, they served lovely food,

and he knew every single detail about every single plane.

You know, he collected schedules, flight schedules.

He'd also make pretend tickets, to give to his family,

when he was a little boy, pretend tickets.

And when he was a big boy too, we had tickets.

In 1992, Travolta was inspired to write

and illustrate a story book called

Propeller One-Way Night Coach.

He actually wrote a children's book about an eight-year-old boy's

first flight, and it's so quintessentially John,

and there's so much of John in that book.

It's an homage not only to flying, but also to his mum.

In 1995, Travolta reflected on how flying helps him.

It gives me a sense of objectivity, and extraversion,

that, often, being an artist doesn't,

because, when you're an artist, often, you're looking inward,

and when you're a pilot you're looking outward.

There is a presence, and a presentness,

and a stillness, and a freedom

that came when he was flying. Just loved it.

He loved every single aspect of it.

And he loved sharing it.

Actor Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs was one of John's passengers,

and witnessed a transformation.

He became a different guy when he had to fly the plane.

He was very serious. He had a whole checklist.

He checked everything. And he touched down easily.

To this day, I'm still impressed by that,

because I saw a John I didn't know.

You know, this very serious, to the rules, very precise person.

So, I was impressed with that, of course.

He's a damn, damn good pilot.

So good that, in the late '80s,

with his movie career seemingly over, he considered switching jobs.

His career was going so badly at that time that he was seriously

contemplating that, once he had all his pilot's qualifications,

he would work for an airline, full-time, as a pilot,

and quit Hollywood.

When you're an actor, they always say you have to have something to fall back on.

He could always do that. He got jet-raided.

He spent a lot of time at American Airlines flight school.

In this interview,

Travolta revealed his feelings about the idea his career may be over.

I thought, OK, maybe this, is it? You know?

Maybe the offers, the good offers will no longer be around the corner.

But you've had 20 years of it, a good run in film, and, you know,

maybe you've made some mistakes, but you've also done some good things.

If you have to say goodbye in this fashion, that's not so bad.

Travolta didn't ditch the day job.

And, in the late '80s, he was offered a role that would put him

back on the map.

It's the most natural thing in the world.

- No. - Yes.

No.

It's a beautiful, magical experience.

St Jerome's hospital. Ah.

- JOHN: - Come on. Breathe deep. Breathe deep.

Don't try to help me, just drive.

Ah.

Look Who's Talking was something that he clearly didn't really

want to do but felt obliged to do to make a living.

You don't even see Travolta for the first half an hour of the film.

And, you know, when you're pipped to the post by a co-star

who is voicing a baby, that's got to do something for your self-esteem.

But, ironically, this role was exactly what he needed.

It did absolutely amazingly at the box office,

and it spawned two sequels, so that at least gave Travolta

some financial security and allowed him to keep flying his planes.

I don't think it got him any of those proverbial cool points

being in this movie at all.

What it did do is prove to studio executives that

John Travolta has been undeniably in a successful film,

and sometimes that's just what you need, to have that meeting,

to have that discussion, to maybe get a better chance

at getting a better role.

It had been a decade since Travolta-mania had swept the world.

His career had now plummeted to rock-bottom,

but as the '90s dawned, Travolta would find love.

Every time she looked at him,

which was most of the time, she didn't care about anyone, anything.

And a career resurrection, the most famous comeback in movie history.

The coolest director in town had put him in a role

where he could be funny, and smart, and gory, and bloody, and be edgy.

This was an amazing opportunity for him.

In the late 1980s, Travolta's career had hit rock-bottom.

He had starred in a series of flops.

Despite earning millions from the Look Who's Talking franchise,

his credibility was at an all-time low.

In 1987, John took a role in a film called The Experts.

On set, he met someone who would change his life.

John met an actress called Kelly Preston on the set

of a low-budget TV movie.

Through him, she became a Scientologist.

And this gave them, obviously, a lot in common.

They both had a rough ride earlier in their lives,

and this formed a connection between them.

Kelly was just a hardcore Scientologist.

She was in for the whole thing.

Two years later,

the pair were married in a Scientologist ceremony in Paris.

In 1992, Travolta appeared on the chat show Letterman,

not to promote a new film but to introduce a new arrival.

- APPLAUSE - Oh, look at the baby.

- And what is your son's name? - His name is Jett. - Jett? - JETT.

Oh, Jett. Now, is that because of your love of flying?

- Yes, primarily. - Very, very sweet baby.

While Travolta had found happiness in his personal life,

his career had stalled.

But he was about to cross paths with a Hollywood figure

who would be his salvation.

In this 1995 interview, he told the story.

I had heard a rumour that

Quentin Tarantino had wanted to meet with me.

And, for an actor who had cooled off considerably, this was good news.

Quentin Tarantino, at this point,

was the award-winning wunderkind who had released, produced,

created this cult classic instant super-hit, Reservoir Dogs.

Tarantino had been a John Travolta fan for a long time, probably

one of the few people who'd seen a lot of John Travolta's 1980s films.

Tarantino wanted to cast Travolta in his next film.

All the big names wanted to be in the business of Quentin Tarantino.

What would he do next?

Turns out, he'd do Pulp Fiction, and he'd cast him off Grease?

Him off Welcome Back Kotter? What are you thinking?

I remember thinking, are you serious, Quentin?

This is the, I mean, I love Grease, but this is the guy from Grease

and loads of flop movies in the '80s.

What are you talking about?

But the film studio pushed back, refusing to cast Travolta.

Tarantino made it a deal-breaker,

threatening to take the project elsewhere.

It took persuading to the film company to put

John Travolta in a movie, because his stock was so low.

To have a kind of washed-up star like John Travolta seems a bit odd.

And I think John Travolta was unsure.

This is not a role you turn down.

Quentin Tarantino, at this point, is the hottest director on the planet,

and he's hunting for you to take a role and you go,

"Not sure, Quentin. Not sure. I'll have a think about it."

Don't you hate that?

Hate what?

Uncomfortable silences.

John Travolta...

Travolta agreed to do the film, taking a much-reduced fee.

The role, a hit man and heroin addict,

was unlike anything he'd played before.

- Die, you mother... - GUNSHOTS

A new film, directed by Quentin Tarantino.

I think Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction was the most important role

John Travolta ever took,

because it transformed him from this heart-throb

into a dark, menacing figure.

His portrayal in Pulp Fiction was

shocking, funny, disgusting,

loved it.

It wasn't John Travolta that we knew.

And, that's why we loved it.

Travolta was given the chance to show his comedic abilities

in scenes that mixed humour and violence.

Marvin, what do you make of all this?

Man, I don't even have an opinion.

Well, you've got to have an opinion.

I mean, do you think that God came down for heaven and stopped...

After years in the wilderness, being ignored by all of his peers

and nobody wanting to take a meeting with him,

this was an amazing opportunity for him.

I remember going to see the movie

in a movie theatre,

and, you know, there's that scene

where he takes his shirt off,

and the lady in the back of me said, "Oh, John."

Like, "Oh, no. Oh, John."

I think it was a bit of a shock to anyone that had fallen in love

with John Travolta in Grease to then see him in Pulp Fiction,

but I think he pulled it off. You know, he had style.

The role may have been different,

but the film made some knowing nods to his early career.

John Travolta and Uma Thurman are having dinner,

and there's a contest for dancing.

Now, who'll be our first contestants?

Right here.

- Want to dance? - No, no, no.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I do believe Marcellus, my husband, your boss,

told you to take me out and do whatever I wanted.

Now I want to dance, I want to win, I want that trophy.

MUSIC: You Never Can Tell By Chuck Berry

# It was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well.... #

The dancing scene with Uma Thurman is classic.

Without showing big moves, without looking like a dancer,

he just looks like a guy who's kind of, he knows how to dance,

but he's a kind of sinewy mover, but he's giving you a flashback.

He's going, yeah, "I'm this guy too.

"Remember John Travolta? This is John Travolta as a hit man."

It's genius, though. It's genius.

I mean, this...

Oh, please.

The film premiered in 1994, at the Cannes Film Festival,

and won the Palme d'Or,

one of the most prestigious awards in the industry.

Pulp Fiction.

Travolta's career was reborn.

- NEWSREADER: - All eyes were on the cast of Pulp Fiction,

as it was the only American film to get an award,

but it was the top award, the Palme d'Or for Best Picture.

I could tell by his reaction that he thought,

"My God, is it possible that I can have a comeback like this?"

It's also a movie which just may change the career of Cannes'

favourite American star this year, John Travolta.

It was perfect for him.

It was the part he needed, in the movie he needed,

at the time he needed it.

The public are so happy that you're back.

I'm just as thrilled as they are, probably more.

Pulp Fiction is really one of the,

if not the greatest comeback of all time...

John reflected on his incredible changing fortunes in 1995.

You say that since the release of Pulp Fiction has been the best time of your life?

I think so, because, you see, this opportunity that Quentin gave me...

It's almost Renaissance.

Yes, renaissance, where this film takes off beyond anybody's belief,

then the accolades start to come in, the kudos and so on and so forth,

and suddenly, it just hasn't stopped.

In Tarantino, Travolta had found someone who believed in him

as an actor.

It was the support he'd been looking for.

Travolta ended up sort of finding another surrogate parent.

He was the one who made him wake up and go, look,

you cannot keep hiding away, you've got to start saying yes to things.

John got very emotional about being rescued by Quentin Tarantino,

having his career resurrected.

- JOHN: - I swear to you, I have to fight the tears,

every time I talk to this man,

because I am continually moved by his interest, his care,

and it doesn't stop at Pulp Fiction.

That's what floors me.

Travolta's roller-coaster career was heading skywards again.

But, despite the comeback, self-inflicted disaster.

I don't know what anyone involved was thinking.

And yet more tragedy lay ahead.

It was devastating.

He actually said he didn't think he would recover.

In 1995, John Travolta was propelled to the top of Hollywood's A-list

again, thanks to Tarantino and a role in Pulp Fiction.

This was his comeback, in no uncertain terms.

Everybody loves a comeback.

If anything, he came back bigger than he was before.

And, thanks to roles in films such as Face Off

and Primary Colours,

Travolta's stock went up, and so did the pay cheques.

The roles that John Travolta took after Pulp Fiction were

giving him quite a lot of money.

We're talking $3+ million.

Travolta's new-found power in Hollywood gave him

the chance to pursue a project he'd cared deeply about.

A film based on a book by Scientology founder

L Ron Hubbard, called Battlefield Earth.

For many years after he became a success,

John Travolta wanted to bring L Ron Hubbard material to the big screen.

He went around all these different studios, saying,

I've got this idea, it's my passion project, I'm on the up now. I'm cool.

But he struggled to find a studio to take on this film about evil aliens.

Travolta eventually secured independent financing,

and was so keen to make it,

he invested $5 million of his own into the film.

- JOHN: - When we attacked your planet, all your soldiers,

and all their advanced technology,

could only put up a measly nine-minute fight

before they were exterminated. Which is why...

..man is an endangered species.

Just as quickly as he had regained his reputation in Hollywood,

Battlefield Earth threatened to destroy it.

As soon as we knew what John Travolta looked like,

it was going to be a flop.

Because he's an eight-foot alien in moon boots and with dreadlocks.

They're wearing stilts.

There are terrible teeth and eye make-up and lenses.

This handsome leading man is now looking like some sort

of train wreck, or a zombie that's been pulled out off the ground.

Who is responsible for allowing this man-animal to run around unsupervised?

I don't know what anyone involved was thinking.

Every single frame is a little bit, what's going on here?

Cackling...

HE CACKLES THEY CACKLE

Evil cackling, even more evil cackling.

THEY CACKLE

It's a joke.

The film was a failure on all fronts,

and seriously damaged John's credibility.

Just so unfortunate that it comes just as his own career renaissance

was happening, because, I mean, this is one of the worst-reviewed films ever made.

It was just an absolute disaster.

But, in 2007, Travolta proved that making unexpected choices

could pay off, when he returned to his roots in a musical.

John Travolta hadn't appeared in one since Grease,

so, what is that, 30 years later?

He thinks, "Now's the time. I'm going to be in a musical.

"What will my role be? I will play Edna."

- JOE: - You must think my ears are garbage cans.

Would you turn that racket down?

I'm trying iron here.

A woman, in the middle age of her life, who would require her to,

sorry, him, to wear a fatsuit, and sing, and dance.

Yet again, Travolta gave it everything he'd got.

# You can't stop my happiness, cos I like the way I am,

# And you just can't stop my knife and fork

# When I see a Christmas ham. #

He did not do things by halves.

He thinks, "I'm getting back into the musical business,

"I'm going to set the dial to extra-hard."

# Ever since this old world began,

# A woman found out if she shook, she could shake up a man,

# And so I'm going to shake and shimmy the best that I can today. #

I salute him for giving it an amazing bash.

There are sequences where he is dancing people off the screen.

Playing Edna in Hairspray was a really brave

and a surprising choice.

All of Travolta's successful roles up to that point had been

very male, very masculine, very alpha.

And here he is, successfully and wonderfully playing a woman.

Travolta had got himself back on track,

but, as ever, after the highs would come the lows,

and this time it was a tragedy that would push anyone to the limits of despair.

- NEWSREADER: - John Travolta's 16-year-old son has died.

Police say Jett Travolta had a medical episode Friday

while vacationing with his family in the Bahamas.

Jett had suffered from lifelong health problems.

It was only after his death that we learned that he'd been

suffering from autism, and had been having fits frequently.

Losing a child is...

How do you cope with that?

This unthinkable tragedy was almost too much for Travolta to bear.

Obviously it was...devastating.

He actually said he didn't think he would recover.

He didn't think he'd even come out of his bedroom.

In 2010, a year after Jett's death,

Travolta revealed the pain of losing his son.

You're kind of a sinking ship, and you need all the King's horses

and all the King's men to keep your head afloat, and we had it.

We had it with our church, we had it with our friends,

and we had it with the public.

I mean, they were unanimous in their support for us in the last year.

- REPORTER: - And you're doing OK? - Yeah. We're, it's working.

I mean, it's been hard.

We worked every day on it as a family, and as individuals,

and it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me, bar none.

After Jett's death, Travolta retreated from the limelight

to be with his wife and two remaining children.

He contemplated retiring from acting.

In 2016, he won praise for his return to TV

in The People vs OJ Simpson,

playing larger-than-life lawyer Robert Shapiro.

These 911 tapes that have been circulating,

they've been playing day and night on all the channels.

It's an audio recording in which the world can hear you beating your wife.

Bob, it was just, you know, tussling.

- I can fix this. - No, no, you can't.

You can't clear it up. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

But, two years later,

Travolta's wife Kelly was diagnosed with breast cancer,

the same disease that had taken the lives of both his girlfriend Diana and his mother.

In 2020, after a long battle with her illness,

tragedy struck once more.

Actress Kelly Preston, who passed away after a private two-year battle with breast cancer.

Her husband John Travolta sharing

the heartbreaking news

on Instagram, writing,

"She fought a courageous fight with the love and support of so many."

Travolta was plunged into unimaginable grief yet again.

He announced her death on Instagram.

It was picked up and reported around the world.

Travolta said that he would be taking some time off to be

with his children, Ella and Benjamin.

There was a feeling in Hollywood and elsewhere that,

great sympathy for him, obviously, he has been through a lot.

John Travolta's life and career has been one of dizzying highs.

He has had an incredible career.

John is a wonderful actor, but he has that extra little bit.

It's the combination of the looks he was blessed with,

the fact that, when he smiles, a room lights up...

And devastating lows.

John's had a wonderful life, but he's had a lot of tragedies.

It doesn't matter who you are, the tragedy is human.

And it humbles you.

It's almost as if every important stage of John Travolta's life

has been accompanied by the death of someone close to him.

At times he's struggled to take control of his career.

I would describe John Travolta's career as a roller-coaster ride.

I think he would too.

Yeah, it's the big dipper.

Sometimes he hasn't wanted to take the ride. I don't blame him.

But only the strongest survive.

But remains a consummate performer,

and the star of some of the most iconic films in movie history.

John Travolta is a Hollywood icon He's bigger than the movies.

He's bigger than the successes, he's bigger than the failures.

John Travolta stands above all that.

To have set trends,

to have had movies that have been that successful, and to truly

have been at one moment in time the biggest star in the world.

Travolta is still recovering from the latest tragedy to scar

his life, but the time may soon be ripe for the comeback king to return.

I want John Travolta to do a John Travolta, and come back.

He's going to come back with a lot of baggage.

Those bags are packed.

Now, unpack them, for the world to see.

You can never write him off.

The setback is the set-up for the comeback,

and reinvention is what he's all about.

Yeah, there'll be a comeback. And I can't wait.

I think it would be great.

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