Or was he simply more of a teen heartthrob prior to Saturday Night Fever?

For the record, Carrie was released on November 16, 1976 (supposedly in trailers, they said "Introducing John Travolta (https://lebeauleblog.com/2012/09/02/what-the-hell-happened-to-john-travolta/)" to capitalize off his new found stardom), Kotter debuted on September 9, 1975, and John Travolta's Boy in the Plastic Bubble TV movie debuted on November 12, 1976.

A movie star? Hardly. It wasn't until Saturday Night Fever that he became a star. People didn't even know that he was in the movie.

I didn't know he was in that movie either until I saw it for the first time last October. That was a nice find!

John Travolta was a rising star when he landed his gig on WBK, but he had not remotely ascended the heights of fame until he landed in Fever. He had made a few films, done some television work and even released a couple of records prior to that hit film. But when Fever came out, it became a cultural phenomenon which immediately took him (as a regular) out of Kotter entirely.

Unfortunately like most cultural phenomenons, they serve only to burn bright for a very brief period of time, and then society does an about face and decides to scorn their existence. That's pretty much what happen to Travolta. He was so closely associated with fever, the Bee Gees, and the whole disco movement, that when that style of music faded, his career went with it. He couldn't get himself locked up after Urban Cowboy.

It goes without saying Tarantino saved his career in the 90's when he completely rebuilt his image by casting him as Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. That gave him a second life.

John Travolta was a rising star when he landed his gig on WBK, but he had not remotely ascended the heights of fame until he landed in Fever. He had made a few films, done some television work and even released a couple of records prior to that hit film. But when Fever came out, it became a cultural phenomenon which immediately took him (as a regular) out of Kotter entirely.

Unfortunately like most cultural phenomenons, they serve only to burn bright for a very brief period of time, and then society does an about face and decides to scorn their existence. That's pretty much what happen to Travolta. He was so closely associated with fever, the Bee Gees, and the whole disco movement, that when that style of music faded, his career went with it. He couldn't get himself locked up after Urban Cowboy.

It goes without saying Tarantino saved his career in the 90's when he completely rebuilt his image by casting him as Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction. That gave him a second life.

About 12 days before Pulp Fiction was released (https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/ps2qbg/comment/hdo83mt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), there was apparently, a Simpsons (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSimpsons/comments/12zulxe/comment/jhufzn6/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) episode (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E4ItchyAndScratchyLand) where the family visit a 1970s themed bar at Itchy and Scratchy Land and Marge quips (https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1ajfjgs/comment/kp0neuv/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3):

“This disco bar is so great! Look, the bartender (https://www.reddit.com/r/TheSimpsons/comments/ogbk87/hey_the_bartender_even_looks_like_john_travolta/) even looks like John Travolta (https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/John_Travolta#:~:text=Portrayed%20by&text=John%20Travolta%20appears%20in%20the,he%20assists%20John%20in%20moving.).”

“Yeah… ‘looks like’.”


The implication presumably being that it was indeed the actual John Travolta, who had to take a job tending bar at the Itchy & Scratchy disco.