Travolta: The Life

No Hollywood star has risen so brightly, after so big a fall, as the man who returned from a decade in straight-to-video Hell to reclaim adultation as a lovable hit man in Pulp Fiction. At the time, Travolta never really did go away. His white-suited finger-pointing disco stud in Saturday Night Fever became a part of the West's mythic landscape - a pop culture Statue of Liberty - as surely a Grease, Urban Cowboy and Staying Alive cemented his status as an idol of the Me generation- a sensitive soul in a streamlined body, lashed on by the call of self-fulfilment. He then obeyed that call in his own life. After being all things to all audiences in the late 70s and early 80s, Travolta spent his years of movie oblivion becoming all things to himself. His bizarre receptiveness of spirit turned sudden fads - flying, Scientology, food, fatherhood - into near-mystical obsessions. And those obsessions nourished the new, improved Actor Travolta who returned in Pulp Fiction, Phenomenon and Primary Colors. Nigel Andrew wittily scans the mother-dominated childhood in New Jersey; the years of life-endangering fan assault; the refuge in Scientology; the night his pilot exploits brought three major airports to a standstill; and, with unique insights and revelations from film-makers who have worked with him, the 'comeback' years of high achievement as an actor. Travolta is the Peter Pan of modern cinema. He flies; he fights for good against evil; and more dramatically than any actor before, he has been to Neverneverland and returned to tell the tale.… (more)