From A Star on the Bright Side
John Travolta is nocturnal. The star of Saturday Night Fever, Grease, Urban Cowboy and other iconic films sleeps all day, then conducts the business of his life at night. Often rising around 5 -- yes, that's 5 in the p.m. -- Travolta has a meal, spends time with his wife, actress Kelly Preston, and children, Jett, 12, and Ella Bleu, 4. Maybe a jump on the trampoline in the yard of his house, deep in Florida's horse country. Then he gets to it. Preparing for movies, his work with Scientology, the religion he adopted at age 20, or flying one of his two jets -- most of it happens after dark.The inverted sleep cycle is part of the price he pays for fame, which came hard and fast when he was 21 and playing "Sweathog" Vinnie Barbarino on Welcome Back, Kotter. Says Travolta: "I do things at night because in the daytime I get recognized."
Maybe Ben Franklin's early-to-bed, early-to-rise advice isn't for everyone. Travolta certainly is wealthy, and at 50, he still has his strapping on-screen good looks. And while wisdom is in the eye of the beholder, in person Travolta comes across as one of the happiest, least-tortured souls around (even when he's playing tortured souls, like a heroin-addicted hit man in Pulp Fiction, for which he received an Academy Award nomination in 1994).
Part of what keeps Travolta centered, he says, is Scientology, "a set of philosophies that help you handle life." Scientology isn't something you believe in, he says, but a "workable technology" -- which perhaps appealed to the kid who has been fascinated with flying for as long as he can remember.
And then there's the freedom of the night. After dark Travolta can go to restaurants, cruise the highway in one of his vintage Ford Thunderbirds, or disembark his 707 and not be hounded by fans and curiosity seekers.
Reader's Digest met with the actor in Florida for a midnight dinner on the eve of the release of his latest movie, A Love Song for Bobby Long. We couldn't have picked a better time.
RD: I once heard you talk about the period before Pulp Fiction, when you weren't getting many roles. In response to a question about how hard that was for you, you said, "I wasn't looking at it that way. Shame on you if you let something like that stop you." Where did you get the ability to always look at the bright side?
Travolta: I am truly an optimist, but not a nutty optimist. If a person does not have legs, I'm not going to say that she can be a ballerina. But if she does have legs, and she has rhythm, I'm going to say, "You could be a ballerina." I never look at the glass half-empty. I always look at a glass half-full. That comes from my parents.
The Flight to Fame
RD: Tell me about your parents.Travolta: The more I learn about life, the more I think, I'm so lucky. I was the sixth child. My mother was an English and drama teacher. We would be put to bed with plays and stories. You'd come home from school, and she'd be reading, and laughing at a stage direction! I could read and write before I got into kindergarten.
RD: And she let you drop out after 10th grade to pursue acting?
Travolta: She knew nothing was going to stop me. But she wanted that 10 to 11 years of basic education in there.
RD: Your mother was Irish, your father Italian. What was the predominant culture in the house?
Travolta: Irish. My dad was second-generation Italian, and I think he'd had enough of the Old World. It was like, "Enough with the spaghetti." He wanted to be modern, and American.
RD: What did he do for a living?
Travolta: He was partners with my uncle in a little store that recapped and sold tires. It had been my grandfather's barbershop. My uncle had the majority share; my father would make maybe $150 a week, then get a bonus.
RD: How did they get by with six kids?
Travolta: My parents never limited their thinking. We had an aboveground pool in the backyard. We had a barbecue, indoor pit. We had a nightclub in the basement. These are things my dad and I created together. We built barbecue pits, pool decks, fences, airplanes. A new pool in those days cost about $500; with a filter, it would be an $800 proposition. Instead, we got a used pool where the liner was $70 and the outside $50. My mother would buy secondhand clothes. She said, "I can put my son in a Christian Dior suit for $10 at the Church of Atonement. If I buy it brand-new, that would be $300. Or I could buy a really cheap suit for $20 that will fall apart." All my clothes were beautiful, because they were the wealthy people's hand-me-downs. My mother was a smart woman.
RD: Your childhood home was under the LaGuardia flight path. And looking around, it seems like your life here is a lot about airplanes.
Travolta: I like the idea of waking up and seeing the planes. It's like people who love seeing their boat parked outside the kitchen door. There's this thrill that you get seeing it.
RD: Your home is on a runway, the way some people live on a golf course.
Travolta: It's a jet-ready place. I have an airliner and a corporate jet right on the site. I would prefer to be near the water, honestly, but when you fly this kind of equipment, you have to go where the runway is. I fly 400 hours a year -- 200 in the 707 and 200 in the GII. I like the idea of an airport home.
RD: What first fascinated you about flying?
Travolta: It was the wonder of flight. It was the design of the aircraft; they made my heart pound, the way they looked. I get almost a romantic feeling about that. Who was on board? Weren't they lucky to be going someplace? Anywhere would have been exciting, as long as they were in a plane.
RD: Are you ever afraid up there, and have you ever had a near miss?
Travolta: No. I had an electrical failure in 1992 in the Gulfstream. But I go to school every six months, so I know how to handle it. When you're trained, it's not a big deal.
Hollywood Nice Guy
RD: You've been a pilot as long as you've been an actor. You've got two movies coming up, A Love Song for Bobby Long, and Be Cool, the sequel to Get Shorty.Travolta: Be Cool is a pure entertainment piece -- me, with Uma Thurman. A Love Song for Bobby Long has a whole other thing going for it.
RD: Yes -- you play a tragic figure in Bobby Long, a college English professor with a drinking problem. What was that like?
Travolta: I knew I could play him because I lived through theater for 20 years -- a lot of drinkers and pontifications, nights of suffering through mean-spirited and then very beautiful things. I suffered through people like Bobby Long. And I felt, "One day, I'll be able to portray that. And it'll be cathartic."
RD: You play guitar and sing a little in the film. You've released albums, and obviously, you sang in Grease. Do you sing at home?
Travolta: My son likes to hear me sing more than my daughter does, because she gets reminded that I'm Danny Zuko in Grease, and that freaks her out.
RD: You dyed your hair white for Bobby Long, who must be the oldest character you've played. Do you worry about getting older?
Travolta: On the screen, I don't. But do I examine that I maybe have 25 to 35 years left? I have children. I'd like to live forever, and see them fully married, have their own children, be happy.
RD: Some people look forward to their kids getting older and being done with that part of their life.
Travolta: Oh, I can't imagine that. I would like to have my kids live with me and have their kids in my house. I'm the grandfather, and we're all together still. I think there is something wrong with the belief that everyone's got to individuate.
RD: When you were growing up, were your grandparents around?
Travolta: My mom had me at 42, so I wasn't around to know my grandparents. But I would have gladly had my mother and father live with me. There's a joy to keeping the family lifeline close. But they wanted to be modern and never burden us.
RD: Your fans think of you as one of Hollywood's nice guys. Why is that?
Travolta: When I was 18, I was doing a Broadway show. I wanted to meet this big star who will remain nameless. When the star met me, the star was appalled that I had interrupted the conversation. I thought, That's right; I was ill-mannered. Nevertheless, I was impacted so deeply that I made a decision: I thought, I don't ever want to have the effect on a person that this person had on me, where I was just blown away by disappointment. It took a few years to get over it.
RD: But you didn't do anything wrong.
Travolta: I always have felt better when I think of what I did to contribute to a situation. Okay, you didn't get that job. Well, you could have been better prepared.
RD: Taking personal responsibility rather than blaming people.
Travolta: When something goes wrong, if you can find any little bit you could be responsible for, it automatically flips it around to where you are in control again. Something bad happens to me, and I go, "I don't like that this happened, but how can I fix it so it doesn't happen again?" It doesn't mean I don't suffer sometimes. But you can turn things around.
RD: Do you feel like you've made a difference in your career -- like the inverse of the way that star treated you all those years ago?
Travolta: I hope so. One thing I do is work with Make-A-Wish. If an ill child's one wish is to see a celebrity and he picks me, then I make time to see him. But I have to be very careful with these kids, because if you get too attached, you're just setting yourself up for loss.
There was one girl who had cancer. She was only seven when I met her, and she didn't look like she was going to make it. But I'm at the airport the other night in L.A., and this beautiful 19-year-old girl comes up and says, "Do you remember me? I was the Make-A-Wish girl." And she took a picture out of her with a bald head and wearing a scarf. "After that visit with you," she said, "I just decided, I ain't going anywhere. Thank you for giving me the inspiration to stick around."
At age 50, you have to feel you're contributing to something. If you don't, I think you die a little bit.
A Passion for Parenting
RD: How are things with Kelly?Travolta: Our marriage has been a really interesting, fulfilling experience. Most of our growing pains were resolving past relationships that didn't quite work out, realizing we weren't those people. We also had to deal with slightly different viewpoints on how children should be brought up. I'm not big on arbitrary things. Kelly might have more a fixed idea -- there should be a schedule. I feel like as long as they get eight hours' sleep, I don't care if they go to bed at 8 or 10. I don't care what they eat, as long as it's nutritious.
RD: Do they keep your late schedule?
Travolta: They do now -- half because they like it and half because that's when they get to see Dad. Kelly wasn't too fond of it. But she's come around.
RD: Are they having a much different experience than you did growing up?
Travolta: We were more important than my parents were, in their eyes. I feel that that's how Kelly and I are with our kids. They're the stars of our family. They're everything to us, and we are secondary to them. People may disagree with that viewpoint, but I don't know how to be any other way.
RD: What has brought you the greatest personal happiness in your life?
Travolta: My children. I know that sounds cliché, but there's a reason things are cliché. Because they're true.
RD: Do you have any regrets?
Travolta: I try to regret just enough to learn, so I don't do something again.
RD: What kinds of things do you do just for fun?
Travolta: Last weekend, I took the kids to Orlando. We stayed at the Ritz-Carlton and just had a blast. Or I'll give everybody a ride in the Ultralight -- it's a flying kite. But we also do the regular stuff -- go to a movie, have a Sunday barbecue, swim. At the end of the day, we go to Dairy Queen. It's funny because that's exactly what I used to do on Sundays during the summer with my mother and father. I said to my wife recently, "I look at this glorious house and the two jets, but it's no different from Englewood, New Jersey, and the backyard there. I'm having the same Oscar Mayer hot dog. And later we'll go to the Dairy Queen."
RD: Are you just as happy as you were back in Englewood?
Travolta: Oh, well, more. Because I have my own kids. I loved my life as a child. But that's the time that you're saying, "One day I'll have my own barbecue. And maybe I'll have a jet in the backyard too." In other words, every generation gets to improve on the dreams of the last generation.