Robert Stigwood

"It was a shock surprise to the industry, this solid hit from nowhere, but it was emblematic of how we were changing how movies got made. Kevin McCormick, a young producer working for Robert Stigwood, saw Nik Cohn’s *New York* magazine article “Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night” and bought it. That article became the loose basis for *Saturday Night Fever.* We heard about it, thought it was simply a great and original concept, and started to develop it—no stars, no pedigree, no package, no nothing—just a *good idea*."

"Robert Stigwood had signed Travolta to a three-picture deal, and we had shot *Grease* in the late summer of 1977, before *Saturday Night Fever* came out. It was a pretty shoddy production all the way through. Everything looked crummy, including the grass, which was supposed to be bright and green and was mostly patchy brown. Many of the shots didn’t match. The pace was uneven. Travolta’s instant fame created a dilemma for us, because after seeing the first rough cut, shortly after *Fever* had become a smash, we thought *Grease* was going to be a disaster. *Fever* was of the moment and *Grease* was a throwback bit of goofball nostalgia. We’d been geniuses in creating a superstar, and now we were about to be the dopes who killed his career in the very same year."