John Travolta Conquers Cannes Film Fest: 'Reinvention Is What I Love'

When John Travolta’s 707 touched down in Cannes, France, last month, the 64-year-old superstar was at the controls, as always, whether piloting one of his 11 planes or steering his illustrious career.

“Reinvention is what I love,” he said at the Cannes Film Festival, where he flew to premiere his eight years-in-the-making gangster biopic Gotti (opening this week in the U.S.) and attend a 40th-anniversary screening of Grease on the beach. “I get bored with myself, but not another character. I take risks, and if I’m not taking risks I’m not comfortable.”

AARP Membership— $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal

Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of discounts, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP the Magazine.

Join Now

In 1992, his Gulfstream II turbojet lost all power at 41,000 feet and narrowly avoided a  midair  collision, but Travolta managed to land at Washington’s National Airport with nothing but a flashlight and a tiny magnetic compass. “I was in the back of the plane nursing Jett," their son who died in 2009, his wife of 27 years, actress Kelly Preston, recalled at Cannes. “It was a very, very dangerous situation, but John never lost his cool for a moment. He stayed calm the whole time.”

In 2018, he was the calmest, coolest guy at the world’s most revered film festival, which made his name — twice. He first visited Cannes in 1978 for the premiere of Grease, which grossed $395 million on a $6 million budget. “I love it when French people of all ages stop me in the street and mimic some of the moves from Grease,” he said this year. When he speaks French to fans, his accent is pretty good. In 1994, Pulp Fiction won the top Palme  d’or  prize at Cannes and revived his comatose career. “Quentin Tarantino was a fan of Grease, and that’s why he wanted me to dance the twist with Uma Thurman,” he said. “The Pulp Fiction explosion gave me 24 years of choices. Four years ago, when we were celebrating the 20th anniversary of Pulp Fiction on the beach here at Cannes, I was in tears. I saw my whole life as an actor unfold before my eyes.”

John Travolta shines as mob boss John Gotti.

Vertical Entertainment

Now Travolta has earned godfather status at Cannes, with the power to wangle a prestige premiere for Gotti, a film that might have gone straight to video without his clout. The movie got mixed to poor reviews at Cannes, but Travolta is immensely watchable as Gotti, the mob boss who died in prison in 1992 while serving a life sentence. Gotti lived movie-star large, famous for his $2,000 Brioni suits, July 4 parties with free pony rides for kids and habit of handing $500 at wakes to widows whose husbands he’d whacked. The film’s tabloid documentary vibe makes it a satisfying guilty pleasure, and the gangster's life has a few parallels with Travolta's — Gotti, too, lost a child.