THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 15, 1994 TAG: 9410140083
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 130 lines
JOHN TRAVOLTA is back. It's fact, not fiction.
In ``Pulp Fiction,'' the controversial and largely unpredictable film that opened Friday at local theaters, Travolta is already being mentioned as a possible Oscar candidate for his role as Vincent Vega, a lowlife hit man who thinks he's cool but keeps making mistakes.
Only movie-fanatic-gone-successful Quentin Tarantino could have written and directed it. And as it turns out, only Tarantino would have hired the former star of ``Saturday Night Fever'' and ``Grease.''
``I don't much like the word `comeback,' '' Travolta said, settling in to talk in a Manhattan hotel the day after ``Pulp Fiction'' was screened at the New York Film Festival. ``It isn't as if I've ever stopped working. It's difficult for me to say I ever suffered. I've had a lot of good luck. I guess you could say I've had at least six comebacks so far. I can name them for you, if you'd like. But, as for me, I don't feel as if I ever stopped. I kept getting work. I just wasn't getting the top scripts at one time.''
Travolta was dressed in a very proper three-piece suit, with vest and tie. ``It's a suit I think Jimmy Stewart might have worn in 1936 if he did an interview with you,'' he said, flashing the still-famous, toothy smile.
The critics are raving and the public, at least the Tarantino cult, is laughing heartily at ``Pulp Fiction,'' a movie of ultra-violence and ultra-exaggeration that tells three sordid stories of dark, some say sick, humor.
The movie is so violent that even those who laugh feel a little guilty about it.
Even facing another career low, Travolta was left in a quandary about whether he should do the film. ``At first, I thought there was no way I would get this part. It's a very good role, and there are actors who are hotter than me who really wanted it. But I met with Quentin and he immediately wanted me to play TV Trivia with him. It turns out that I'm one of his favorite actors of all time, and he wanted me for the part. He went to bat for me and simply insisted that I have the part. That kind of loyalty is something you don't find, in Hollywood or anywhere else.''
Then, more soul searching took place. ``I wouldn't have done Quentin's `Reservoir Dogs.' It was just too violent, but I decided I could live with this one. It doesn't glorify drugs or violence, although it has both. It says that if you mess with guns, you die. It says that if you mess with drugs, you die. Everyone in this film is headed for death, but it's fake. These scenes became funnier as we played them - funnier even than they were on the written page.
``I've been involved in movies that started three or four social phenomena in this country, so I'd be the last guy to say that movies don't affect the way people think,'' Travolta said, ``but I can live with `Pulp Fiction.' It's not like `Good Fellas' or `The Silence of the Lambs.' They were taken seriously.''
But what are the social phenomena that John Travolta sparked?
Scratch your memory and you'll remember them. The disco and white suit fashion craze brought about by ``Saturday Night Fever'' in the '70s. The return of the movie musical with ``Grease,'' still the most successful movie musical of all time. The birth of country-Western cool in the '80s with ``Urban Cowboy.''
Those were the ups. ``For 10 years, I was getting the best scripts in the industry,'' he said. ``It was like a drag. It's no fun when you're the only guy in the game. Then, I went from first to third to 10th on the list. After `Perfect' in 1985, a lot of guys came along, all at once and they started getting the roles - Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Tom Hanks, Michael Keaton, Kevin Costner. I was still getting jobs, but not the best.''
And there were flops. The first big disaster of his career was a romance called ``Moment By Moment'' with Lily Tomlin in 1978. ``I was disappointed for a few days, but you have to remember, I was on a wave that wouldn't come down so quickly. I got an Oscar nomination for `Saturday Night Fever.' I was Francois Truffaut's favorite actor. Critics like Pauline Kael and Janet Maslin liked me. The ups were there, but you have to expect, in any business, that the downs are going to be there too.''
Travolta comes from a show business family and has been performing since he was a child. He's the youngest in a family of six - two of whom are actors. His mother was an actress. His own fame came when he was just 21. Now, at 40, he has thinning, salt-and-pepper hair and thinks it is hilarious that he has a gut in ``Pulp Fiction.'' ``It's funny when I tuck my stomach in and pull up my pants,'' he said.
``Pulp Fiction'' co-star Samuel Jackson said, ``the thing about John is that he has star quality. Barbra Streisand and Jimmy Stewart had this. Few do. John has it, plus a kind of dignity that audiences recognize. Once producers see it, they push it and push it until people are saturated with it. Then, they throw you out and hire the new flavor of the month. That's what happened with John, but he fooled them. He still has it.''
Howard Bender, one of ``Pulp Fiction's'' producers, explains it this way: ``John brings an empathy to his work. He brings a kind and sweet touch to his characters. It's always real. There's never a false moment in his performances.''
The film also stars Bruce Willis, as a double-crossing and double-crossed prizefighter, and Amanda Plummer and Tim Roth as hold-up folks who want to switch from liquor stores to restaurants.
Travolta now lives in Florida when he isn't working. He's married to actress Kelly Preston, and they have a 2-year-son named Jett. He likes to stay up all night and sleep all day, a throwback to New York theater days. ``There's that time between 11 at night and 3 in the morning which is all your own, when the rest of the world is quiet,'' he said.
Next, he'll play a third-rate gangster in ``Get Shorty,'' an adaptation of the Elmore Leonard best-seller, co-starring Gene Hackman. Then, he'll star in ``White Man's Burden,'' a film that explores racial and class reversals, co-starring Harry Belafonte.
``Grease'' and ``Saturday Night Fever'' are two of the biggest movie soundtrack albums of all time. Travolta thinks it's funny that he again dances in ``Pulp Fiction.'' Travolta does a drug-affected version of The Twist with Uma Thurman, who plays the wife of a jealous gangster who has hired Travolta to chaperone her.
``I always approached dancing in terms of acting,'' he said. ``I tried to figure how this character would do The Twist if he were stoned and he thinks he's cool.''
He doesn't expect to bring back The Twist the way he sparked the disco craze. ``I'm a little plump now, so they'll call it acting,'' he said with a laugh. ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
John Travolta
John Travolta dances with Uma Thurman in "Pulp Fiction."
Photos
PARAMOUNT
John Travolta brought back the disco craze in ``Saturday Night
Fever.''
MIRAMAX
Samuel L. Jackson, from left, John Travolta and Harvey Keitel star
in ``Pulp Fiction.''
by CNB