Age, Biography and Wiki
John Joseph Travolta was born on February 18, 1954, in Englewood, New Jersey. He is currently 71 years old. Travolta is the youngest of six children in a creative family—his mother was a singer and actress, while his father was a tire salesman. Showing early promise in performing arts, Travolta dropped out of high school at 17 and moved to New York City to pursue acting. His breakthrough came with the Broadway musical Over Here! and later, the hit TV show Welcome Back, Kotter.
Travolta’s rise to global fame was cemented by his iconic roles in Saturday Night Fever and Grease, making him a cultural icon of the late 1970s. He continued to evolve his career with acclaimed performances in films like Pulp Fiction and Get Shorty, demonstrating remarkable versatility as an actor, singer, and dancer.
| Occupation | Film Producer |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 18 February 1954 |
| Age | 71 Years |
| Birth Place | Englewood, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Aquarius |
| Country | Jersey |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Height: 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 meters)
Weight: Approximately 197 lbs (89 kg)
Other measurements: Not publicly available
| Height | 6 feet 2 inches |
| Weight | 197 lbs |
| Body Measurements | |
| Eye Color | |
| Hair Color |
Dating & Relationship Status
John Travolta was married to actress Kelly Preston from 1991 until her passing in 2020. The couple had three children: Jett (deceased in 2009), Ella Bleu, and Benjamin. In recent years, there have been rumors about his dating life, but Travolta has maintained a relatively private personal life since Preston’s death. As of 2025, there is no official confirmation of a new partner, though some lifestyle features mention a partner, possibly referring to close personal relationships rather than public romance.
His father, Salvatore "Sam" Travolta, was a semiprofessional American football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company, Travolta Tire Exchange. His mother, Helen Cecilia (née Burke), was an actress and singer who had appeared in The Sunshine Sisters, a radio vocal group, and acted and directed before becoming a high school drama and English teacher. His siblings Joey, Ellen, Ann, Margaret, and Sam Travolta were all inspired by their mother's love of theater and drama and became actors. His father was a second-generation Italian American with roots in Godrano, Sicily, and his mother was Irish American.
After dropping out of school, Travolta moved across the Hudson River to New York City and landed a role in the touring company of the musical Grease as Doody and on Broadway in Over Here!, singing the Sherman Brothers' song "Dream Drummin'". He then moved to Los Angeles for professional reasons. Travolta's first screen role in California was as a fall victim in Emergency! (Season 2, Episode 2) in September 1972, but his first significant movie role was as Billy Nolan, a bully who was goaded into playing a prank on Sissy Spacek's character in the horror film Carrie (1976) directed by Brian de Palma. Around that time, he landed his star-making role as Vinnie Barbarino in the ABC TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–1979), in which his sister, Ellen, also occasionally appeared (as Arnold Horshack's mother).
Travolta had a hit single titled "Let Her In", peaking at number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in July 1976. In the next few years, he starred in the television movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble and two of his most noted screen roles: Tony Manero in the dance drama Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Danny Zuko in the musical Grease (1978). The films were among the most commercially successful pictures of the decade and catapulted Travolta to international stardom. Saturday Night Fever earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, making him, at age 24, one of the youngest performers ever nominated for the Best Actor Oscar. His mother and his sister Ann appeared very briefly in Saturday Night Fever and his sister Ellen played a waitress in Grease. Travolta performed on the Grease soundtrack album. After the failure of the romance Moment by Moment (1978), in which he starred with Lily Tomlin, Travolta rebounded in 1980, riding a nationwide country music craze that followed on the heels of his hit film Urban Cowboy, in which he starred with Debra Winger.
Following the death of his wife Kelly Preston in July 2020, Travolta hinted on his Instagram account that he would be putting his career on hold, stating, "I will be taking some time to be there for my children who have lost their mother, so forgive me in advance if you don't hear from us for a while".
Travolta was in a relationship with actress Diana Hyland, whom he met while filming The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976). They remained together until Hyland's death from breast cancer on March 27, 1977. In 1980, Travolta dated French actress Catherine Deneuve. Travolta also had an on-again/off-again relationship with actress Marilu Henner, which ended permanently in 1985. In 1988 while filming The Experts, Travolta met actress Kelly Preston, whom he married in Paris in 1991. They had three children: Jett (1992–2009), Ella Bleu (born 2000), and Benjamin (born 2010). They regularly attended marriage counseling and Travolta has stated that therapy helped the marriage. They lived near Ocala, Florida.
On July 12, 2020, Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, died at the age of 57, at their home in Clearwater, Florida, two years after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Preston had undergone treatment at different hospitals, and at the time of her death, was receiving treatment at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.
| Parents | |
| Husband | Kelly Preston (m. 1991-July 12, 2020) |
| Sibling | |
| Children |
Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, John Travolta’s net worth is estimated at $250 million. His wealth comes from:
- Film Salaries: At the height of his career, Travolta earned up to $20 million per film. Notable examples include Urban Cowboy, Look Who’s Talking, and Face/Off. For Pulp Fiction, he earned a modest $150,000, but the film’s success revitalized his career and led to higher paychecks in subsequent years.
- Producing Credits: Travolta has worked as a producer on several films, adding to his income.
- Real Estate Investments: He owns luxurious properties, including a notable estate in Florida.
- Endorsements: Travolta has appeared in commercials, including a 2023 T-Mobile Super Bowl spot.
Career, Business and Investments
- Acting: Travolta’s career spans over five decades, with starring roles in blockbuster films, television, and voice acting.
- Producing: He has produced multiple films and television projects, both under his own banner and for major studios.
- Business Ventures: Travolta invests in real estate and aviation; he is a licensed pilot and owns several private planes.
- Mentoring: He is reportedly mentoring his daughter Ella Bleu’s career and developing new film and television content.
- Recent Projects: In 2023 and beyond, Travolta starred in the action thriller Cash Out 3 and appeared in high-profile TV commercials.
Travolta followed up Urban Cowboy with a starring role in Brian de Palma's 1981 film Blow Out, which was critically lauded but a box office disappointment, likely due to its bleak ending. After Blow Out came a series of commercial and critical failures which sidelined Travolta's acting career. These included Two of a Kind (1983), a romantic comedy reuniting him with Olivia Newton-John, and Perfect (1985), co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis. He also starred in Staying Alive, the 1983 sequel to Saturday Night Fever, for which he trained rigorously to portray a professional dancer and lost 20 lb; the film was a financial success, grossing over $65 million, though it, too, was scorned by critics.
Travolta subsequently starred in Look Who's Talking Too (1990) and Look Who's Talking Now (1993), but it was not until he played against type as Vincent Vega in Quentin Tarantino's hit Pulp Fiction (1994), with Samuel L. Jackson, for which he received an Academy Award nomination, that his career was revived. It was Travolta's third film alongside Bruce Willis. The movie shifted him back onto the A-list and notable roles that followed include a movie-buff loan shark in Get Shorty (1995), a factory worker in White Man's Burden (1995), a corrupt U.S. Air Force pilot in Broken Arrow (1996), an everyman with extraordinary powers in Phenomenon (1996), an archangel in Michael (1996), an FBI agent and terrorist in Face/Off (1997), a desperate attorney in A Civil Action (1998), a Bill Clinton–esque presidential candidate in Primary Colors (1998), and a military investigator in The General's Daughter (1999).
Travolta is a pilot and rated to fly Boeing 707, 737, and 747 planes. He owns four aircraft. Travolta owned an ex-Qantas Boeing 707-138B (Ex-VH-EBM) which bears an old livery of Qantas, and Travolta acted as an official goodwill ambassador for the airline wherever he flew. Travolta named his 707 "Jett Clipper Ella", in honor of his children. The "Clipper" in the name refers to the use of that word by Pan Am as the company's call sign as well as in the names of their aircraft. In 2017, Travolta donated the Boeing 707 to the Historical Aircraft Restoration Society (HARS) near Wollongong, Australia. This was expected to be flown to Australia in November 2019, but was later delayed to sometime in 2020 due to condition of the aircraft. Travolta planned to be on board when the aircraft was to be flown to Illawarra Regional Airport, where HARS is based, but was not allowed to fly it, because it was to be registered as an Australian aircraft.
On January 2, 2009, Jett died at age sixteen while on a Christmas vacation in The Bahamas. A Bahamian death certificate was issued, attributing the cause of death to a seizure. Jett, who had a history of seizures, reportedly had Kawasaki disease since the age of two. Travolta confirmed that Jett was autistic and had regular seizures, and immediately made his public statements while giving testimony at the trial of two defendants (a paramedic and a former Bahamas senator) who Travolta alleged tried to blackmail him with a multimillion-dollar extortion plot involving private information in connection with the death of his son Jett. After a mistrial, Travolta dropped the charges and has credited his immediate family and Scientology with helping him to cope with Jett's death and move forward with his career. In memory of Jett, Travolta created the Jett Travolta Foundation, a nonprofit organization to help children with special needs. It has contributed to organizations such as the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy, Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, and Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Social Network
- Instagram: John Travolta is active on Instagram at @johntravolta.
- Twitter/X: Not active on Twitter/X as of 2025.
- Facebook: Mainly managed by his team, with updates on projects and personal milestones.
Travolta returned to television portraying lawyer Robert Shapiro in the series The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story. He received an Emmy Award as a producer as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. He was also Emmy-nominated for his role in the action-comedy web series Die Hart (2021).
Since 2010, Travolta has starred mostly in action films and thrillers, such as From Paris with Love (2010) and Savages (2012). In 2014, Travolta made headlines for mispronouncing the name of Idina Menzel by calling her "Adele Dazeem" during the live broadcast of the 86th Academy Awards; he subsequently apologized and expressed embarrassment for the error. The mispronunciation evolved into a popular internet meme which ultimately boosted Menzel's popularity, causing Menzel to remark that Travolta's error "was one of the best things that happened" in her career. In 2016, he returned to television in the first season of the anthology series American Crime Story, titled The People v. O. J. Simpson, in which he played lawyer Robert Shapiro. For his performance he received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.
Education
- High School: John Travolta dropped out of high school at age 17 to pursue acting full-time.
- Professional Training: Travolta trained in New York City, including roles in theater and Broadway, which laid the foundation for his career.
He grew up in an Irish-American neighborhood and said that his household was predominantly Irish in culture. He was raised Catholic, but later converted to Scientology in 1975 at age 21. He converted after being given the book Dianetics from former actress Joan Prather. Travolta attended Dwight Morrow High School, but dropped out as a junior at age 17 in 1971.
