Word: fever
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...there, in the walk that John Travolta takes through the opening credits of Saturday Night Fever. Right there is the little kid from New Jersey who danced in front of the television while he watched James Cagney storm-tapping through Yankee Doodle Dandy. The boy in the chorus who trundled his way through a nine-month tour of Grease. The young man who landed a supporting part on a sitcom, watched himself become a TV star, a pretty face on a poster, and a purveyor of slick, sappy top 40 ballads. All that bought him a shot at what...
...stroll down the Brooklyn asphalt, and midblock he had the street tucked neatly under his arm. By the time he got to the corner he had walked away with the turnaway hit of the season, second only to Close Encounters of the Third Kind in 1978 grosses. Saturday Night Fever has started Travolta along a yellow-brick show-biz road that reaches out of sight, raised discomania to a national craze and made superstars of a likable rock group called the Bee Gees for the second, or maybe it's the third time...
When Travolta first appears in Saturday Night Fever, there's an instant charge?a shock of recognition, of excitement, of acceptance. He has the moves, the presence, the princely mystique. No one can fully define star quality, but you can find illustration enough. And, in 1978, that walk is the best one around...
There is a whole future in that ellipsis, which does not take away an inch from Travolta's interpretive skills. A closer look at Fever will reveal both an actor who works his tail off and a man with a sharp eye for stage business. As Tony Manero, he strides down that block of Bay Ridge swinging a can of paint like a talisman, and when he stops for a snack at the corner pizza stand he orders two slices, then eats them one piled right on top of the other...
...Like autograph hounds, it comes with the territory, and the quiet kid from Englewood, N.J., is already getting typed as a kind of Steiff Toy hoodlum. This has something to do, of course, with the parts that have brought him fame: Vinnie Barbarino in Kotter, Tony in Saturday Night Fever, even Danny Zuko, the cuddly tough guy in Grease, all rough-and-ready proles with a hint of self-mockery and a double dose of wistfulness. Travolta's low profile will be his best chance of holding onto his privacy and whatever portion of himself he wishes to preserve...