John Travolta Trivia | 100 facts about the actor

John Travolta is a famous American actor, who came to public attention during the 1970s.

Let’s find out more about the actor!

1. His full name is John Joseph Travolta.
2. He was born on February 18th, 1954.
3. He is an American actor.
4. He was the youngest of six children.
5. He was born raised in Englewood, New Jersey, an inner-ring suburb of New York City in Bergen County, New Jersey.
6. His zodiac sign is Aquarius.
7. He came to public attention 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).
8. In October 1997 was ranked #21 in “Empire” (UK) magazine’s “The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time” list.
9. He appeared on the cover of “Rolling Stone” magazine four times, the most for any actor (through 1994).
10. He was named Man of the Year by Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Club in 1981.
11. Richard Gere practically owes his film career to Travolta. Travolta turned down the leads for Days of Heaven (1978), American Gigolo (1980), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and Chicago (2002), all of which went to Gere.
12. Married Kelly Preston twice. Their first wedding on 9/5/91, by a French Scientologist minister, was declared illegal. The couple met during the filming of The Experts (1989).
13. He and Kelly Preston had a son, Jett Travolta (1/13/92-1/2/09).
14. Brother of Joey Travolta, Ellen Travolta, Ann Travolta, Margaret Travolta and Sam Travolta.
15. Was the youngest of six children of Salvatore Travolta and Helen Travolta.
16. During the filming of The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976), he fell in love with Diana Hyland, 18 years his senior. She died of breast cancer at 41, in his arms, in 1977. Coincidentally, in 2020, his wife, Kelly Preston, the mother of his three children, also died of breast cancer.
17. Has piloted or owned a multitude of jet aircraft, including three Gulfstream jets, a Learjet, and a Boeing 707. His most notable aviation feat was a successful landing at Washington National Airport in a Gulfstream IIB with complete electrical failure. Conditions at the time were night, IMC, icing.
18. Listed as one of 12 “Promising New Actors of 1976” in John Willis’ “Screen World”, Vol. 28.
19. In July 197, he became the very first male to make the cover of “McCall”‘s magazine.
20. His second child with Kelly Preston, daughter Ella Bleu Travolta was born on 4/3/2000, weighing 4.08 kilos (nine pounds).
21. Read for the Tom Hanks role in Splash (1984) but was discouraged by his agent from doing the film.
22. Was signed to play rock star Jim Morrison in an early 1980s biopic about The Doors. Due to legal problems, the project was dropped.
23. Did yoga and boxing to lose his “love handles” for Swordfish (2001).
24. Was told to gain 30 pounds for his role in Primary Colors (1998).
25. Owns homes in Santa Barbara, CA; Ocala, FL; Maine; and his wife’s home state of Hawaii. Their main residence is in Ocala, where he owns a large home, complete with an airstrip for his planes.
26. According to the documentary We Get to Win This Time (2002), the producers of Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) considered teaming up Sylvester Stallone with him as Rambo’s young partner in rescuing the American POWs. Sylvester Stallone nixed this idea when he decided it would be better to make the film a solo project.
27. Spent nine months learning how to dance to disco music while filming Saturday Night Fever (1977).
28. He owns (and is qualified to fly as second in command) a Boeing 707-138, appropriately registered N707JT, first built in 1964 for QANTAS Airlines of Australia. Recently he had the aircraft painted in its original QANTAS paint job and took it on a worldwide promotional tour for QANTAS and, in return, was trained as a 747-400 first officer with the company.
29. He has also worked as a musician and released several albums. He claims that he got all his inspiration from one song only; the instrumental song “Dreamstreet”, a song by Patrick Rondat.
30. While filming Blow Out (1981), he suffered from insomnia, which he had since he was a child waiting up for his mother to come home from late acting jobs. He learned to play the violin to calm his nerves.
31. In October 2004,he starred in a series of television commercials for Sky TV (meant for Italian TV). Directed by Harald Zwart, the television commercials play as a sitcom, where John Travolta – as himself – moves in with a working-class family because they have Sky.
32. He was voted the 64th Greatest Movie Star of all time by “Entertainment Weekly”.
33. Ranked #3 in “TV Guide”‘s list of “TV’s 25 Greatest Teen Idols” (1/23/05 issue).
34. He frequently eats at Denny’s in the middle of the night, which is where he ate through Lucky Numbers (2000).
35. Turned down the roles: Splash (1984), Apollo 13 (1995) and Forrest Gump (1994). Tom Hanks was cast as the lead.
36. Owned a three-bedroom beachfront oceanfront estate, on Oahu in Hawaii from 1986-2005. He and wife Kelly Preston sold it to Kathy Ireland for $3 million and she plans to rent the private residence out as one of several Kathy Ireland worldwide company vacation villas.
37. Turned down several offers from the producers of Chicago (2002) to play the role of Billy Flynn. Richard Gere accepted the role and won a Golden Globe for his performance.
38. Got the role of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction (1994) primarily because Michael Madsen, the actor for whom the role was written, was unavailable due to a prior film commitment. Vincent was the brother of Michael Madsen’s character Vic Vega (aka Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs (1992)) and the role jump-started his career after a long slump.
39. His father, Salvatore/Samuel J. Travolta, was of Italian descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. Salvatore/ was born in New Jersey, the son of Salvatore/Samuel Travolta and Giuseppina/Josephine Marsala. His mother was born Helen Cecilia Burke, also in New Jersey, and was the daughter of Charles Frederick Burke and Mary Ellen Murphy.
40. Was considered for the role of Jim Morrison in The Doors (1991). It went to Val Kilmer instead.
41. In 2006 his performance as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever (1977) is ranked #73 on” Premiere” magazine’s 100 Greatest Performances of All Time.
42. On the Saturday Night Live (1975) episode, Saturday Night Live: John Travolta/Seal (1994), he parodied his Welcome Back, Kotter (1975) character Vinnie Barbarino.
43. His characters make mention of an Al Pacino film in at least three of his films: Saturday Night Fever (1977), Get Shorty (1995) and Swordfish (2001).
44. Owns a home in Ocala, FL, because of his wife’s intense love of horses.
45. He lost 20 pounds for his role in Saturday Night Fever (1977).
46. Was strongly in the running to play Larry Meadows in The Last Detail (1973), only losing the role to Randy Quaid at the last minute. This would have been his big-screen debut.
47. Was among the guests at Tom Cruise’s and Katie Holmes’ wedding ceremony in Italy.
48. On 4/2/07, while piloting his return flight from Germany to New York, he was forced to make an emergency landing in his Boeing 707 at Ireland’s Shannon Airport. He’d been promoting his new movie in Europe and encountered technical difficulties on his return flight. Fortunately for him, he was flying over Ireland at the time he first detected his private jet’s engine problems and was safely diverted to Shannon on Ireland’s west coast. Not allowing himself to be fazed by the whole ordeal, he grounded his 34-seater and continued his flight home on a commercial airline.
49. In 1985, Princess Diana asked him to dance at a party at the White House.
50. He drew inspiration for his acting from James Cagney, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and others.
51. Master of Ceremony at the Centennial of Flight Celebration at Kitty Hawk, NC, in December 2003, where he presented to John Glenn aviation’s highest award.
52. He owns an Eclipse 500 twin turbofan aircraft.
53. Has appeared in Hairspray (2007), opposite Michelle Pfeiffer, whose debut film was Grease 2 (1982), the sequel to Grease (1978), in which Travolta appeared.
54. Has claimed his favorite director to work with was Sylvester Stallone, for Staying Alive (1983). He said Stallone knew how to make him look the best on screen.
55. Jett Travolta, his 16-year-old son, died following a seizure at the family’s Bahamas holiday retreat on 1/2/09.
56. He was offered the role of Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets (1997), which went to Jack Nicholson.
57. Was considered for the role of Lester Burnham in American Beauty (1999) but Kevin Spacey, who went on to win a Best Actor Oscar for his performance, was cast instead.
58. He was offered Richard Gere’s role in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), and opted to go to American Airlines’ jet pilot school instead.
59. Owns a vacation home on a small island in Maine’s Penobscot Bay. The secluded 20-room château, surrounded by acres of pines, overlooks the ocean and comfortably accommodates up to 50 guests. He bought it because Christmas is his favorite holiday, and he wanted a place big enough to house his extended family.
60. Was married to Kelly Preston on 9/5/91 at the Hotel de Crillon in Paris in a private ceremony. A small orchestra performed the main theme from A Man and a Woman (1966), his favorite French film.
61. He was to have played the lead role in “The Double”, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel about a man whose life is taken over by his doppelganger. He was being paid $17m and shooting was to have started in Paris in June 1996. Just days before principal photography was due to begin, he flew back to the US following an argument with the film’s director, Roman Polanski, over alleged changes to the script, and the film collapsed shortly afterwards.
62. He was inducted into the 2011 New Jersey Hall of Fame for his contributions to the Arts and Entertainment.
63. Third child, son Benjamin, was born in a Florida hospital on 11/23/10 at 8 lbs. 3 oz.
64. Stepbrother-in-law of Chris Palzis.
65. Son-in-law of Peter Palzis.
66. He and wife Kelly Preston have the distinction of having both starred in movies based on Stephen King novels, where the title of each was a girl’s name that began with the letter “C”. He starred in Carrie (1976) and see starred in Christine (1983).
67. In 1986 he was slated to co-star with Whoopi Goldberg in a buddy/action-comedy called “Public Enemies”, produced by the Cannon Group. In it, he would have played a disgruntled cop who is teamed up with a reckless young rookie, played by Goldberg, to uncover the whereabouts of a notorious mob figure. Bud Yorkin was attached to direct. Even though it was heavily publicized at the Cannes Film Festival, funding fell through and the project was scrapped.
68. Although he is often cast as Italian-American and is of Italian descent on his father’s side, he has stated that his family was invested more in his mother’s Irish ancestry, and he grew up mostly around Irish culture.
69. Speaks French fluently.
70. Awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Blvd. on 6/5/85.
71. In honor of his 60th birthday on 2/8/14, there was a special singalong showing of Grease (1978) at the Million Dollar Theater in Los Angeles. Before the start of the movie, a video tribute from Olivia Newton-John was played, followed by a thank you video from Travolta himself.
72. He auditioned to play Jesus Christ in Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), which went to Ted Neeley.
73. When introducing Idina Menzel at the 2014 Academy Awards, he mistakenly pronounced her name as “Adele Dazeem”. The flub has since drawn a lot of attention and ridicule (including a Twitter account for Adele Dazeem). He apologized to Menzel and sent her a bouquet of flowers.
74. He turned down the role played by Johnny Depp in Nick of Time (1995).
75. He presented the Oscar for Best Actor at the 55th Academy Awards in 1983. The winner was Ben Kingsley for Gandhi (1982).
76. Turned down the role of “Dave Seville” in Alvin and the Chipmunks (2007).
77. Was offered the role of the “Green Goblin” in Spider-Man (2002).
78. Michael Jackson’s song “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin'” (1983) was originally written for Travolta but ultimately ended up as Michael’s own personal recording from his 1982 “Thriller” album. Travolta would later appear as one of several celebrity cameos in Michael Jackson: Liberian Girl (1989).
79. In 2014 he received the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Award for Outstanding Achievement in International Cinema.
80. He stars in three of the top 150 Greatest Movies of All Time, as listed by “Empire” Magazine: Blow Out (1981) (#139), Carrie (1976) (#86), Pulp Fiction (1994) (#9) [August 2015].
81. He was named one of the Most Valuable Actors of All Time, with the total gross of his films coming in at $4.3 billion.
82. Ten of his films have grossed over $100 million in the US: Grease (1978), Wild Hogs (2007), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Look Who’s Talking (1989), Hairspray (2007), Bolt (2008), Face/Off (1997), Pulp Fiction (1994), Phenomenon (1996) and The General’s Daughter (1999); 8 of these have grossed over $200 million worldwide.
83. After starting his career on the TV show Welcome Back, Kotter (1975), his film career took off in the late 1970s with starring roles in Saturday Night Fever (1977), which earned him an Oscar nomination for best actor in a leading role, and Grease (1978). Adjusted for inflation, these remain the two highest-grossing films of his career.
84. Turned down the leading role in Forrest Gump (1994), a decision he later admitted was a mistake.
85. Has a dance scene in nearly all of his films.
86. Is the youngest of six children–three boys and three girls–and was nick-named “Bone” when young because he was long and lean.
87. His father was a former semi-pro football player.
88. Offered roles in Arthur (1981), Splash (1984) and An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) but passed on them.
89. He has appeared in four films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant: Carrie (1976), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Grease (1978) and Pulp Fiction (1994).
90. Was set to do American Gigolo (1980) but at the last moment dropped out, and the part went to Richard Gere. He was then offered An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)’ but turned it down because it glorified war.
91. Since he likes both good food and fast food, he tends to put on weight between projects. He always manages to take it off in time for filming.
92. Opened a restaurant in partnership with his sister Ellen Travolta.
93. Born at 2:53 PM (EST).
94. Befriended Bruce Willis during Pulp Fiction (1994) filming, in which, ironically, they played enemies. Before that, they starred together in two movies, Look Who’s Talking (1989) and Look Who’s Talking Too (1990), in which Willis played the inner-voice of Travolta’s love interest’s baby in the first one, and Travolta’s son in the second.
95. He joined Scientology during the filming of his first movie, The Devil’s Rain (1975), one of the few cast members of his age, actress Joan Prather, told him that Scientology could help him with his then-unhappiness.
96. Mentioned in Family Guy: Mr. & Mrs. Stewie (2012).
97. In the late 90’s he was being lined up to star in a film about formula One racing with Robert Rodriguez set to direct.
98. Travolta was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation in 2007 and acts as the award show’s official ambassador.
99. He is the author of the book Propeller One-Way Night Coach, the story of a young boy’s first flight.
100. Travolta is rated to 737, 707 and 747 planes