No ordinary John

If you absolutely positively have to meet John Travolta, you might as well do so on a day when he’s sporting a replica Danny Zuko jacket. Can it possibly be the original, I enquire, as he walks into his suite in the Canary Wharf Four Seasons? (It’s handy for parking his jet in nearby London City Airport apparently.)

“Oh, I wish,” he waves dismissively as he settles into his chair. “I donated all those clothes to charity. Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad I did, but occasionally I’ll see them pop up at auction for incredible amounts of money. The white suit from Saturday Night Fever went for $140,000 recently. Only Princess Diana’s $200,000 dress would have cost you more. But it’s not like I could have got into that suit for most of the past three decades.”
Never mind the flamboyant modesty. At 53, Mr John Joseph Travolta looks considerably more svelte than he did during the Swordfish years. Back then, a string of cheesy career choices and a rapidly expanding waistline threatened to undo all the credibility regained through Pulp Fiction.
But Travolta’s success, even with the patronage of Quentin Tarantino, has always been about cheese. And, to paraphrase William Goldman, nobody knows anything about cheese. Following a brief flirtation with swoony pop stardom and a number ten on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, Travolta put his previous experience in stage musicals to good use in hen party classics Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Grease (1978). In 1980, having successfully evangelised for show-tunes and disco, he would kick start another American dance craze with Urban Cowboy, a countrified jamboree co-starring Debra Winger.
After shifting 10 million soundtrack albums and tonnes of popcorn, it looked as though his star was on the wane. He regrettably turned down roles in American Gigolo, An Officer And A Gentleman, and Splash, though his ability to surf the zeitgeist has never entirely dissipated. Perfect, the 1985 paean to hard-bodies, defined the gym-mania of the era. Look Who’s Talking, a cutesy family comedy from the same year, was a massive box-office hit.
“I’m a pop culture guy,” he tells me. “And that’s what I want to be – the voice of the public. I’ll be doing the Dallas movie next and I think that has huge potential. And that’s good because they’ve already paid me. I don’t gravitate toward movies that I don’t want to see. I love An American In Paris and The Godfather and Grease. Even when I’m doing an independent film, I’m there as Mister Pop Culture. I think that’s what films should be about, the icons and iconography of the day. You look at movies from the nouvelle vague and that overpowering sense of aesthetic where Anna Karina’s haircut can be a character or a race-car can be a character. It’s just so romantic and glamorous and exciting to watch.”
Travolta’s grasp of cinema history is pretty remarkable. As one of the few film actors who actually, you know, watches films, he can frequently sound like a certain famous fan-boy of his acquaintance. He’s been an avid fan of Ingmar Bergman’s oeuvre since he “was a kid”. He speaks of Festen as a “modern masterpiece”. And he particularly gushes about the sex scene between Gerard Depardieu, Isabelle Huppert and Jean Moreau in Les Valseuses: "Oh my God, when they’re all making love and there’s that moment when he sucks on her breasts, it’s the most erotic, provocative, funny, sexy thing I’ve ever seen.”
Yes, but it’s not very, erm, John Travolta is it?
“Yeah,” he nods, “but I think those films are totally watchable. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t have become popular. I mean, I love commerciality but I also feel like I’m dying of a broken heart whenever I see La Strada.”
Though his career has occasionally been pockmarked with superfluous sequels (Look Who’s Talking 2, Be Cool), gobbling disasters (The Punisher, Mad City) and career missteps intended to honour L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology (Battlefield Earth, Phenomenon) this savvy cineaste has a formidable capacity for reinvention.
“When you’ve been around for 30 years you get a different perspective on failure,” he shrugs with characteristic nonchalance. “I did The Dumb Waiter with (Robert) Altman and that didn’t do any business but it’s Harold Pinter’s favourite performance of the play. Blow Out didn’t make any money but a lot of people say it was my best work, and Quentin (Tarantino) was a fan and that’s why he cast me in Pulp Fiction. Then that became the impetus for lots of other roles. I mean, there is no debate about my career at that point. That motherfucker was out there. But Quentin is a man beating his own drum and he loves me. He helped me decide on Get Shorty. He’s advised me on lots of things. When he calls, I’m there.”
Possessed of dainty voice and a penchant for musical theatre, you can see why Travolta has been the victim of many a malfunctioning gaydar. In 1982, jobbing actor Paul Barresi claimed to have had a homosexual relationship, only to later withdraw his story. In 1998, Travolta was named in a lawsuit involving a former member of the Church of Scientology who attempted to sue the religious cult when his homosexuality was not “cured”. The lawsuit alleged that the Scientologists frequently cited Travolta as proof that they could change a person’s sexual orientation. Lawyers soon dismissed the claim as “hogwash”.
Last year, the New Jersey-born star was photographed kissing an unidentified male in Hamilton, Ontario. The gesture, he claimed, was not of a romantic nature, though that didn’t prevent another gust of tabloid speculation.
Crucially, despite a leading role in South Park’s Trapped In The Closet episode, none of these stories have held up. Travolta’s long-term relationship with actress Diana Hyland only ended when she died in his arms in 1977 after losing her battle with breast cancer. Since 1991, he has been married to the actress Kelly Preston. The couple have two children; a son named Jett in honour of daddy’s aeronautical obsession, and a daughter named Ella Bleu, both of whom he clearly dotes on.
“I’ve had the best time with that little girl recently,” he says. “She’s been advising me on hair and make-up”.
Her expertise has been called upon for her father’s role in Hairspray, the film of the hit stage musical inspired, in turn, by the fabulously trashy John Waters movie. While recent attempts to translate Broadway smashes into box-office receipts have not been happy experiences – stand up Rent and The Producers – Travolta is confident that this camp tale of catfights at a ‘60s TV dance contest will buck the trend.
“I’m really excited to get it out there,” he says. “It tested through the roof. It’s had the best response they’ve ever had at New Line (makers of Lord Of The Rings). I’ve always loved musicals, but I’m always playing the macho guy in the leather jacket. So being a woman was great and liberating and fun. And everybody loved Edna, my character. Even my little girl was inviting her to tea parties. But only when I had my breasts and my wig. She wasn’t so keen when I was only half made-up. She called that person ‘Flapper’.”
Did he have problems assuming a fat suit for a role originally made famous by the Rubens-esque Baltimore muse Divine?
“Oh no, or at least the fat suit was nothing,” he says. “But you wouldn’t believe the things a woman had to do in 1962. I had the stockings and the high heels and stuff I didn’t even know existed. It was like torture.”
As success beckons for Travolta the unlikely actress, there can be little doubt that this blue collar boy of Irish-Italian descent is, for all the hiccups, a Real Live Movie Star. His $4.9 million estate in Florida is situated on an international airport (which he part owns) with its own runway and taxiway right to the door. He has danced with the late Princess Diana, who was delighted to entertain him at a White House function in 1985.
He even can count certain former presidents among his friends. Famously, following Travolta’s sympathetic portrayal of Bill Clinton ersatz in Primary Colours, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was, at the star’s behest, (unsuccessfully) dispatched to persuade the German government to grant Scientology the status of a registered religion.
Still, if John Travolta has proved himself a master of bouncebackability in a capricious industry, he must sometimes wonder if he’s resurrected his career as many times as anyone might possibly manage.
“I don’t worry about that so much,” he smiles. “Since I hit 50 I have started wondering how many summers and Christmases I have left. But if I’m suddenly working less then fine. I’ve got all the cars and jets and toys I need to keep me occupied.”

Hairspray is released July 20.