John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta was born in New Jersey in 1954.
Under the influence of his mother, an actress and singer, he dropped out of high school and found work on Broadway with Grease and Over Here!.
After his Broadway work, he crossed the country to Los Angeles where he would gain international stardom with megahits like Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction, for which he was nominated for an Oscar.
Known mostly for his ’70s dance moves, Travolta appeared in the silver screen version of the Broadway classic Hairspray, playing the iconic Edna Turnblad.
Travolta, a practicing Scientologist, married to actress Kelly Preston in 1991. Together they had three kids, Jett, born in 1991; Ella Bleu, born in 2000; and Benjamin, born in 2010.
The couple’s teenage son, Jett, passed away in early 2009 as a result of a seizure disorder following an accident during a family vacation in the Bahamas. Travolta’s wife, Kelly Preston, died in 2020 from breast cancer.