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There are some celebrities we believe will never topple from the firmament. Your Tom Cruises, your Julia Robertses. These days, we think that John Travolta is in that category. The question is, should he be?
Certainly, John Travolta does boast every one of the trappings of big-time celebrities. He's a Scientologist. He's married to another celebrity. As is proper for hugely famous and popular movie stars, his actress wife is a lot less famous and successful than he is. He has a couple of kids, the better to prove that he's a family man. He flies his own jet. Like Bruce Willis, Tom Hanks, and Alec Baldwin -- other actors in the same class as Travolta -- the word that best describes the current state of his once taut, muscled body is...well..."puffy." While women actors in Hollywood are decidedly not allowed to be puffy, pilots, or more famous than their spouses, all of those conditions are de rigueur for Hollywood menfolk.
But I digress.
In the age of The General's Daughter and A Civil Action, it's easy to forget that the mid- to late eighties represented a dark time on John Travolta's CV. But a little research uncovers the unsavory truth. Staying Alive, anyone? The Experts (part of which was filmed in my high school in Niagara-on-the-Lake)? The Look Who's Talking trilogy? These are films that were not supported by multi-million-dollar marketing campaigns and lavish gala premieres; they didn't make truckloads of money (with the possible exception of the first LWT), nor did they enhance Travolta's reputation as an actor.
Since his professional resuscitation in the unlikely comeback vehicle Pulp Fiction -- where his role as Vincent Vega even earned him an Academy Award™ nomination -- John Travolta has been showered with starring roles in a string of big Hollywood movies. With few exceptions -- Get Shorty, Phenomenon, and and Face/Off come to mind -- all of these films have been, despite their high profiles, neither watchable nor successful. How, may we ask, does someone walk away unscathed from the smouldering wreckage that was Michael? Mad City? White Man's Burden? When, may we ask, will John Travolta be called upon to pay the damn piper, and doff the bulletproof vest of his celebrity?
John Travolta really can't act. He's not cute anymore. The odds of his jumping onto the hood of a car to belt "Greased Lightnin'" again grow more and more remote as the years go by.
Johnny, it comes down to this. I am the target demo for the vast majority of entertainment marketing. And you are my dad's age. You don't do it for me, which means the sun is setting on your career. And I don't want to see your bare torso ever again.
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