Beefy Travolta 'a foodaholic'

South China Morning Post, December 29, 1999
By Liz Hodgson

John Travolta is said to have astonished crew members on a one-day test shoot for a film by spending more time at the dinner table than on the set. He allegedly demanded a lavish breakfast of eggs and caviar, prepared in his luxury trailer by his personal chef, Peter Evangelitos, who earns US$32 (HK$248) an hour.

Then he headed to make-up for his role as a lounge singer and friend of Frank Sinatra in the film, Standing Room Only. Once that was done, he decided it was time for lunch, according to Los Angeles magazine Mean.

He got the chef to mince US$50 worth of steak to make hamburgers, but rejected the first two, one because it was overcooked and the second because he did not like the mayonnaise.

"The guy just eats and eats," a crew member said. "He's like one of those geese that gets force-fed to make foie gras."

Standing Room Only, which is to co-star Travolta's wife, Kelly Preston, and be directed by Gus Van Sant, was supposed to start shooting last May but was delayed because Travolta was filming Battlefield Earth, a sci-fi novel by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

Travolta, a Scientologist, has been developing the latter, in which he plays an alien with talons instead of hands, for six years.

The film is now in post-production and Travolta has moved on to making

Numbers, co-starring Lisa Kudrow.

No new start date has been announced for Standing Room Only.