Travolta

"Of course, Charlie had loved the first movie, and about an hour after it opened, he already wanted a sequel: the story of what happened to Tony Manero once he crossed the river. Four years had passed since *Fever*, and still no one thought this was anything but a bad idea. Nevertheless, Charlie wouldn’t get off this dim sequel horse and I placated him by arranging a meeting with Travolta at the Hôtel Byblos in Saint-Tropez. Charlie romped around the room, trying to talk John into doing it. It was, of course, a stupid thing for John to agree to, but he was overwhelmed by Charlie, and he uttered an incautious yes. For no connected reason Charlie then met with Sylvester Stallone. He immediately called me and said, “I have a great coup! Stallone is going to direct the movie.”"

"Then, two months later, we opened *Saturday Night Fever.* All of us inside the company loved the little movie we’d made, and with hubris we decided to preview it for the industry at the grand Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard thinking that if we were standing this tall behind it everyone would take notice. At five of eight, the place was practically empty. Our old-time head of publicity came over to where I was sitting and whispered in my ear, “Travolta’s the problem; he’s a television person. You don’t put a television person in a movie. The kid just doesn’t put asses in seats.” Well, not old Hollywood asses. But two weeks later we opened the movie, and there were vast lines around the block at every theater across America. Television execs and a television star had broken into the movies. We were on our way. The next year, 1978, we went from last place to first among all the major studios. And we would stay number one for the next seven years. Miracle of miracles."

"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."