Article of the Week - John Travolta

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John Travolta
Made one of his first major roles as
Vinnie Barabarino, the leader of the
Sweathogs in Welcomed Back, Kotter

John Joseph Travolta (born February 18, 1954) is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease. Travolta's acting career declined in the early 1980s and continued to deteriorate throughout the remainder of the decade. His career faced a resurgence in the 1990s with his role in Pulp Fiction, and he has since continued starring in Hollywood films including Face/Off, Ladder 49, and Wild Hogs.

Travolta was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance in Get Shorty.

Travolta's first California-filmed television role was as a fall victim in, Emergency! (S2E2), 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). Around the same time, he landed his star-making role as Vinnie Barbarino in the TV sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–1979), in which his sister, Ellen, also occasionally appeared (as Arnold Horshack's mother). The show aired on ABC.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "John Travolta"