He's lost his mother, his son, and his wife — but could it have been the media that
hurt John Travolta the most?
Young John Travolta didn't seem to have the tragic home life that many stars reflect on
as adults.
According to Wensley Clarkson's biography "John Travolta: Back in Character," Travolta
and his siblings had loving parents who were always there to protect and encourage them.
That sounds great, but Clarkson suggests that this helicopter parenting left Travolta incredibly
spoiled and ill-adjusted to the world outside of his family.
"Well, my parents were the best audience of course, early on, and then at six or seven
I graduated to inviting the neighborhood in."
As a young man in high school, Travolta was shy, academically indifferent, socially awkward,
and incredibly attached to his mother.
As Travolta himself explained —
"I would come home from school and I'd play a Broadway musical record instead of running
to do my homework.
That made me different from my peers.
My reality was different from theirs.
I was interested in show business, and they weren't."
Being different didn't make Travolta many friends, as his time in school was filled
with bullying and name-calling that often ended with him running home in tears.
Although his sheltered life kick-started his interest in what would become his acting career,
it also left him unable — and unwilling — to make friends his own age.
He was suspended for various behavioral problems, and he suffered from severe anxiety that apparently
stemmed from loneliness.
Travolta's sheltered, spoiled upbringing also made him ill-equipped to deal with the sort
of heartbreak that goes along with falling in love, growing up, and growing apart.
He met his first love, Denise Wurms, when they were both young, and their friendship
eventually blossomed into something more romantic.
They would date for about five years.
Per Clarkson's biography, their relationship allowed Travolta to form one of his first
outside-of-the-family relationships, but it didn't end as he wanted it to.
Travolta's early acting career separated the couple, as he had to travel while she remained
in their hometown.
By the time he had started booking commercials, he'd moved to New York City — and the distance
was just too much.
His sister Ellen was there for that fateful phone call, and she recalled —
"She told Johnny she wanted to break up with him.
He was devastated."
Travolta had been doing a play in Chicago and flew home immediately, but Wurms refused
to take him back.
It hurt the young actor enough that he would end up having major difficulties building
other relationships after the breakup.
The pain was renewed when Wurms showed up to see Travolta touring with the "Grease"
musical in San Francisco: he thought she was interested in getting back together, but instead
she wanted to tell him she was getting married to someone else.
It would take Travolta a long time to understand her side of the story.
One of Travolta's earliest movie appearances was in "Devil's Rain," in which he starred
alongside stars William Shatner, Ernest Borgnine, and Tom Skerritt in a story about a Satanic
cult.
The movie wasn't particularly well received by critics, and filming it was no picnic:
it was made in sweltering, brutally uncomfortable conditions in Mexico, and Travolta was in
misery the whole time.
The one saving grace for Travolta was that one of the supporting actors, Joan Prather,
was an old friend of his.
Prather recalled to Wensley Clarkson —
"He was in need of friends.
He was depressed, as was I, and we were the only two young people there, really.
It was a very lonely time for him.
The friends he had were using him as a doorwipe, to put it bluntly."
Prather didn't just bring friendship, she brought something else, too: Scientology.
She'd been in the church for a few years — and within days, Travolta went from not really
caring in the least to being all-in.
Prather said that he had gotten really, really sick with the flu while filming, and after
performing a Scientology ritual called "touch assist" together, he was hooked.
Prather joked —
"I started showing him my Scientology books, and he just couldn't read enough of them."
Travolta has been an enthusiastic member of the church ever since.
"Forty years, it's been amazing — I've saved other people's lives, I've saved my own life
several times…"
Travolta and Diana Hyland really hit it off while they were filming "Boy in the Plastic
Bubble," so they started dating — even though she was 18 years older and playing his mother.
Afterwards, Hyland went on to "Eight is Enough," while Travolta cemented his heartthrob status
in "Welcome Back Kotter."
In his biography, Wensley Clarkson revealed that the actor made a promise to his sister,
Ellen: he said to her —
"If I go into this relationship, I'm going in all the way.
I'm just so scared.
I don't want to be hurt again."
Sadly, though, Travolta would end up getting hurt very deeply.
Hyland had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had already undergone a partial mastectomy.
Meanwhile, Travolta's career was up, up, and away.
The couple started talking about marriage and children, and then Travolta was filming
"Saturday Night Fever."
But Hyland's health declined.
At one point during his shoot, Travolta flew back to LA to spend time with her.
They walked through the garden together, and she died the following day.
Travolta told People —
"I felt the breath go out of her."
Travolta would later refer to that period as the hardest of his life, and he admitted
to channeling his grief into the character of Tony Manero in "Saturday Night Fever."
"There's ways of killing yourself without killing yourself."
In 2014, the actor recalled to the Daily Beast —
"My girlfriend had just passed away and I wasn't aware that I was wearing the grief
of her.
But in the scene where the girl kisses me on the cheek, I start to cry.
Her tenderness made me cry."
Diana Hyland died in March of 1977, and it wasn't long before Travolta would be facing
another devastating loss.
His beloved mother, Helen, was very obviously ill by 1978 — but the rest of the family
had decided not to tell him that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
He only learned later that, even as he had been dealing with Hyland's illness and ultimate
passing, his mother was already aware of her own diagnosis.
Helen Cecilia Travolta died in December of 1978, and John was understandably devastated.
He wavered in interviews and on publicity tours — and he even backed out of his next
film, which was slated to be "American Gigolo."
Later, Travolta would say —
"I had a real dichotomy in which I had great success and at the same time, great sorrow
and tragedy.
A lot of people got frustrated when my grief and tragedy got publicized.
They were saying, 'Because you're famous, suddenly your loss is more important than
our loss.'"
But Travolta had another shock to deal with on the heels of his mother's passing: six
months later, his father married the woman who had been her nurse in the final months
of her life.
Although Travolta and his siblings gradually came to accept the relationship, his initial
public response to the news was to simply state —
"June is a very nice lady."
Burying a child is a parent's greatest fear — and in 2009, Travolta did just that when
he and his wife Kelly Preston said goodbye to their 16-year-old son, Jett.
Countless media reports told and retold the story: Jett, who had been diagnosed with a
rare disorder called Kawasaki Syndrome when he was a toddler, suffered a seizure while
the family was staying at their vacation home in the Bahamas.
He died after falling and hitting his head.
In 2014, Travolta sat down for an interview at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and spoke
about his son's death, admitting —
"The truth is, I didn't know if I was going to make it.
Life was no longer interesting to me, so it took a lot to get me better."
The Travolta family has continued to pay tribute to Jett in social media posts made on his
birthday.
As if dealing with the death of a child isn't hard enough, Travolta and his family also
had to deal with reactions from the mainstream media and strangers online.
It wasn't kind.
To make a long story short, countless outlets used Jett Travolta's death as a way to point
the finger at Scientology — and in particular, the church's view of modern medicine.
According to Scientology's official website, practitioners are allowed to seek mainstream
medical advice, but drugs of any kind — prescriptions included — should be avoided.
"You know, drugs are notoriously a Band-Aid for various situations."
This led to some chatter about whether or not the Travolta family had denied Jett treatment
because of church teachings.
In 2014, the Daily Beast asked Travolta if the accusations, speculation, and headlines
bothered him.
Specifically, they were asking him about a man who had come forward claiming he'd had
a long-running romantic relationship with Travolta, which the actor denied.
That wasn't the incident that ended up hurting him the most, however.
When asked if he found the allegations offensive, Travolta recalled —
"I found it most offensive with the loss of my son.
I felt like that was the lowest I'd ever felt.
[...] Stay away from my family.
You really should.
With that, I always felt like the media — not all of the media, but parts of it — went
too low there.
[...] The rest of the stuff I can deal with, but that one really made me question the whole
thing."
After the death of Jett Travolta, it wasn't just the fallout from the media and the internet
chatter that his father had to deal with.
John Travolta soon found himself in court after two people — a paramedic and a Bahamas
senator — were charged in connection with an alleged attempt to extort the Travolta
family for $25 million.
Details, as reported by The Guardian, were scant — but it was claimed that a parliamentarian
and friend of the Travolta family said that foul play may have been involved.
They were cleared of wrongdoing, but the extortion case went forward.
Travolta had to testify at the trial, reliving the day of his son's tragic final moments.
The trial dragged on and on, and it eventually ended in a mistrial when confidential information
ended up on the radio.
It was also revealed that the case centered around claims that Travolta refused medical
treatment for his son, which he wholeheartedly denied.
After the mistrial, the case was dismissed.
According to the Independent, it was Travolta who had asked for the dismissal, saying he
couldn't bear to go through another trial and even more testimony.
His attorney stated to the court —
"The Travolta family has said that this matter has caused them unbelievable stress and pain
and they now wish to put this whole thing behind them."
In July 2020, one of Travolta's representatives confirmed to People that his wife, fellow
actor Kelly Preston, had died two years after a diagnosis of breast cancer.
They had been married for a long time: Travolta had proposed in 1991.
Despite initially asking for privacy, Travolta has since been candid about his struggles
with grief after losing his life partner.
On an episode of Kevin Hart's talk show "Hart to Heart," he shared how difficult it had
been explaining mortality to his 10-year-old son, Ben.
"I said I could die tomorrow.
You could.
Anybody can, I said, so let's look at life… that it's part of life."
In an interview with Esquire, Travolta addressed the question of what he's learned about grief.
He explained —
"I learned that mourning someone, living in mourning, is something personal.
Mourning is individual, and experiencing your own journey is what can lead you to healing."
Travolta has continued to post tributes to his late wife on his social media, including
a 2021 Mother's Day post that read in part —
"We love and miss you.
Happy Mother's Day."