John Does It Again - John Travolta magazine

John Loves

Nobody's love-life has been spread about the pages of newspapers and magazines. recently as much as John Travolta's. Every girl he is seen smiling at or walking next to, is, according to the press, his current romance. Working colleagues have been mistaken for girlfriends. He's supposedly madly in love with Priscilla Presley, Elvis's ex-wife, even though they have only ever had a couple of casual dates. Actress Marisa Berenson has been rumoured to be his latest flame, just because she stayed in the same hotel in Deauville as John and he took her out sightseeing.

Naturally, the papers have all made great play of the fact that the greatest love of John's life to date was a much older woman. Ever since that heartbreaking romance, reporters have had a morbid curiosity about the age of every girl John has been seen with. If they happen to be a bit older than him, then whoopee! they can say that John is once more living up to his reputation for only fancying older women.

Poor John! Sometimes he must simply despair about it all and feel he daren't even strike up a casual conversation in a restaurant or airport in case some newshound sees him and starts a new rumour. And as for the 'older ladies' thing... do you honestly think John bothers to find out a girl's age before he asks her out? Of course not!

It's the person he's attracted to, not their birth certificate.

As an example of how easily rumours start, when John was at the film festival in Deauville, he was seen chatting to a pretty girl. Photographers took pictures which appeared in British newspapers the next morning accompanied by headlines like, Travolta Romance Mystery'. The following day, September 9th, the 'mystery' was solved girl was none other than the French press agent who had been assigned to work with him while he was in Deauville. There was no love affair going on at all.

Another name which has been linked to John's is that of Olivia Newton-John, his "Grease" co-star. Livvy's a very pretty, highly talented girl and John took to her as soon as he was introduced to her by the film's producers, but there wasn't any great romantic flare-up between them. What they have got is a great brother and sister kind of relationship. During the period when they were appearing in public a lot together to promote 'Grease', they were often to be seen laughing and joking together, or even strolling around holding hands, which gave the vivid imaginations of those newshounds plenty to work on. But it was John and Livvy who had the last laugh, because they know what their relationship really is a comfortable, companionable friendship.

John got along equally well with his co-star in 'Saturday Night Fever', Karen Gorney, and with Nancy Allen, who played his girlfriend in 'Carrie'. Nancy was one of the two friends he relied on a lot to help him through the terrible period after the death of Diana Hyland. The other friend in need at that time was Marilu Henner.

Because John brought Marilu over from the States to attend the Deauville film festival and the London premiere of 'Grease' with him, people who didn't know much about John naturally put two and two together and presumed that she must be his steady girlfriend. It was an easy mistake for them to have made, because John and Marilu do see a lot of each other, but, in actual fact, she is his ex-girlfriend - who, like John's very first girlfriend ever, has remained friends with him even though the romantic side of the relationship has died.

John met Marilu when he joined the cast of the 'Grease' roadshow in America. He went out with her for several months and they even tried living together, but it didn't work out and they split up just before John started filming 'Carrie'. It was an amicable split they just realised they didn't want to settle down together on a permanent basis. And the Summer after 'Carrie' was completed, John had his first fateful meeting with Diana Hyland.

John always gets to know a girl very slowly. He meets her, likes her, and a friendship builds up between them which sometimes gradually changes into love. If things are destined not to work out, that love changes back into friendship again, a friendship that is true and lasting. For John is a sincere person who understands himself. He doesn't believe in flash-in-the-pan infatuations. For him, love has to build up gradually and naturally, rather than start with a big flare-up which gradually dwindles into nothing, not even friendship.

This pattern started when John dated his first girlfriend at high school. It was repeated with Marilu and again with Diana Hyland. In Marilu's case, he spent most of the tour getting to know her and it was just before the show was due to end that they actually got involved with each other. It was the same with Diana. She played the part of his mother in 'The Boy In The Plastic Bubble' and John liked her instantly for her warmth and sense of humour. They spent day after day talking to each other on the set, getting to know one another.

Shortly before the cast of the film took a holiday break, they had a party and it was then that Diana and John admitted how much they really felt for each other. As soon as John had come back from his holiday to resume filming, their romance started. Tragically, it was doomed to last just six months, for Diana died of cancer, leaving John absolutely desolated. He had never felt so much for any woman before, and she was gone. It was at this point in his life that he was glad he had family and friends around him.

He still hadn't got over it when he started work on 'Grease', and Olivia found herself having to comfort him when memories of Diana made him very upset at one of the launch parties for Grease.

This shows something about John he isn't a flirt. When he falls in love, he falls hard and deep and if something goes wrong it takes him a long time to recover.

The first romance in his life happened at high school. He was never noted for being 'one for the girls'. There was one particular girl he liked and he did his usual thing of getting to know her gradually until he finally plucked up the courage to ask her out. They dated until John dropped out of high school to pursue his acting career. He tried to keep the relationship going long-distance, but it didn't work. In John's words, she was 'too pretty', she attracted too many other boys and she soon found somebody else nearer home to got out with.

John was very hurt but he forgave her. She's married now, has a couple of children, and lives in Washington. John always tries to drop in and see her whenever he's in the area.

Marilu, who knows John better than most people, describes him as being a one-woman man, very selective. She says he's the sort of guy you can take to a party without having to worry about him flirting with the prettiest girls in the room. He's very loyal to the people he's fond of, and he's absolutely boggled by the stories he reads connecting him with various girls, most of whom he hardly even knows.

When he's in love with a girl, he tries to protect her from the gossip-mongers. He vows that he'll never get married while there is so much rumour and ballyhoo surrounding him, because it wouldn't be fair on the girl. Just imagine how she'd feel when she opened up the daily paper and saw yet another reference to a 'romance her husband was supposed to be having with some strange girl. She'd certainly feel very insecure and unhappy and John wouldn't want this to happen to somebody he loves.

However, he says he'd love to get married one day and have children, because he loves kids and always gets on well with them.

John has stayed very close to his parents, brothers and sisters. In fact, the mystery girl with John in a lot of recent photos is his sister, Ellen, who is an actress and has a part in "Grease". She flew over to London to join John at the premiere and she was very amused when the papers wondered who this 'girlfriend' of John's was!

Although John has no regular girlfriend just now, sooner or later he's bound to fall in love again. And when he does, what sort of girl is she likely to be? For a start, she'll have to be someone who really understand's John's way of life. He works so hard that he comes home terribly tired. He has to be up early in the morning to be on the set at 8 a.m., sometimes even earlier. And maybe, after a gruelling day's filming, he'll have to go to the recording studio in the evening to work on his latest record.

This means that he can't afford to go out enjoying himself nearly as much as he'd like to. So his girlfriend would have to have patience and understanding and be able to help his life run smoothly and calmly. She'd need to soothe him when he came home overtired and perhaps annoyed because filming hadn't gone right that day. She'd need to be able to understand what the life of a superstar entails and not get worried about the rumours. But above all, she would need to be warm, friendly and very loving, because she'll certainly receive a lot of love and devotion from John himself.

As for age, well, if John met you and you were the sort of girl he was looking for, my guess is that it wouldn't matter whether you were 16, 26 or 36 as far as John is concerned, it's not birthdates but the person that really matters!

John Does It Again

Apart from the phenomenally successful 'You're The One That I Want' which, along with 'Hopelessly Devoted To You', was written by '50s star John Farrar, who used to be in The Shadows and has written and produced a lot of Olivia Newton-John's material, a whole host of star names were involved with the writing and performing of the new music.

The title song, 'Grease', which accompanies the opening and closing credits, was specially written and produced by Barry Gibb. It's performed by Franki Valli, with Peter Frampton on the guitar, and has been released as a single which is doing very well indeed.

Rock revival group Sha Na Na, who appear in the film playing at a school dance under the name of Johnny Casino and the Gamblers, have half a dozen tracks on the 'Grease' album, rock classics like 'Rock 'N' Roll Is Here To Stay' and 'Blue Moon'. Altogether, there are 24 superb numbers on the double album, which is on the RSO label.

Accent

Olivia Newton-John emerges as a surprisingly good dancer in the film. In fact, the producer and director were so pleased with the dance number she'd originally been given that they re-wrote some of the sequences to give her more dancing to do! Funnily enough, it was Marie Osmond who was originally considered for the part of Sandy. She's done quite a bit of dancing on T.V. shows, so it was to Olivia's credit that she managed to pick up the routines so quickly. As soon as Olivia was chosen for the role, the storyline was altered to allow for her Australian accent. Although Sandy was originally supposed to be an all-American girl, the scriptwriter wrote in a bit of plot which explained that Sandy's family had come over from Australia to settle in America.

'Grease' was made on the Paramount film lot in Los Angeles and right from the start producer Allan Carr, a great party giver himself, made sure that the right atmosphere was created by setting up champagne buffets by the side of the set and inviting not only the 'Grease' cast and crew and anybody else who was working on the Paramount lot to help themselves and join in.

Pretty soon all inhibitions were gone and the cast were having such a good time that they carried it on into the actual filming.

The movie was by no means as cheap to make as 'Saturday Night Fever'. In fact 'Grease' cost a staggering three million pounds! But the film and album seem all set to reap much greater financial rewards than that worldwide.

Opinions

By now, most of you will have seen 'Grease' and formed your own opinions about it. I don't know if you'll agree with us but we thought the only thing wrong with it was that there wasn't enough of John in it!

The film didn't give him as much opportunity for displaying his dancing and acting talents as 'Saturday Night Fever' did we thought that they could have changed the script to allow John far more dancing scenes. What 'Grease' did do, though, that 'Saturday Night Fever' didn't, is allow him to display his singing talents. He's certainly got so many talents that maybe it's too much to ask of one film to allow him to display every single one as fully as we'd like. 'Grease' and 'Saturday Night Fever' put together give us a good idea of what we can expect from John in the future!

Will John ever make another dancing film? Even though his next two aren't planned to feature him as a dancer, we wouldn't mind betting that his inborn love of music, rhythm and movement will inspire him to don his dancing shoes again in the not too distant future, especially if he manages to achieve his current ambition, which is to produce his own films!