Kiss of death for Travolta's career?

The Daily Mail, London/September 8, 2006
By Paul Scott

Holding court in Hollywood’s fashionable Orso restaurant last month, John Travolta was indulging himself with two of his favourite subjects — his love of food and his loathing of Tinseltown’s paparazzi.

Between mouthfuls of pasta, he treated his companions, who included actors Tom Hanks and Sally Field, to a lengthy and expletive-laden diatribe about the vast sums photographers can earn from sneak pictures of celebrities.

As a result, he proudly told his famous friends, he has instinctively trained his senses to know when their prying lenses are being trained on him.

How ironic, then, that this week the plat du jour at the gossip-hungry tables of the trendy eaterie is Travolta himself — or rather the snatched picture of the somewhat rotund actor tenderly kissing a man on the lips on the steps of his private plane.

The whispers about Travolta’s sexuality which have plagued his movie career almost from the outset are now reaching a crescendo.

Indeed, one Los Angeles casting director described the photograph as 'an absolute disaster' for the actor.

No wonder the Pulp Fiction and Grease star is said to be seething — not least because the rumours are threatening his position as one of Hollywood’s leading men.

Could the pictures really be proof that one of the movie world’s biggest heart-throbs of the past 30 years has been living a double life strikingly at odds with his family man image?

Suffice to say this is not the most opportune time for the 52-year-old Travolta to be filming his latest role — in which he dresses in drag to play a woman in the oh-so-camp musical Hairspray.

Equally ill-timed for him were reports this week that Jennifer Lopez — his would-be leading lady in the upcoming big-screen version of Dallas — turned down the role of his wife Sue Ellen because she decided Travolta is not 'macho' enough to be the double-dealing JR Ewing.

And if that were not enough to darken his mood, there continue to be wild and fanciful claims that his marriage to actress Kelly Preston was arranged by the shadowy cult-like religion of Scientology, of which he is a leading disciple.

Hardly surprising, then, that Travolta’s PR team at the influential William Morris Agency in Beverly Hills has been holding crisis meetings in an attempt to limit the fall-out.

Their intervention comes after the actor was seen embracing his unnamed male friend as he prepared to board his own Boeing 707 jet in Canada, where he is filming his role as middle-aged mother Edna Turnblad in Hairspray.

Even accounting for the kissy-kissy world of showbusiness, the picture is astonishing. It shows the Saturday Night Fever star — dressed in black jeans and top and with close cropped hair — leaning forward on tiptoe to wrap his left arm around his fair-haired companion as their lips meet.

The picture has reignited the 'Is he or isn’t he?' speculation which in the past has seen a series of men claim that Travolta is gay.

Five years ago, one man claimed Travolta had tried to pick up a business executive in a health club. This followed father-of-two Travolta being named as a homosexual in court papers in 1998 by a former member of the Church of Scientology.

In the bizarre complaint filed in the U.S. federal court, Michael Pattinson, a gay Beverly Hills artist, alleged that the powerful sect used the actor as an example of how a homosexual could be 'cured' by Scientology.

Pattinson, who was a member of the same Scientology centre in Clear-water, Florida, as Travolta, attempted to sue the church and the actor because he claimed he had spent £280,000 trying — and failing — to become straight.

Though Pattinson never got his case as far as a court hearing, the publicity was embarrassing for a star who has built his career on a string of tough guy roles.

Unfortunately for Travolta, Pattinson’s claims were not a one-off.

Earlier, the prestigious Time magazine had reported allegations made by Richard Aznaran, the former Scientology head of security, that the church’s leader, David Miscavige, had repeatedly joked about Travolta’s 'promiscuous homosexual behaviour'. Aznaran’s claims came months after the star was the subject of lurid accusations in a U.S. supermarket tabloid that he’d had a two-year affair with Paul Barresi, a gay porn star.

Barresi, who had a bit part in Travolta’s Eighties flop Perfect, claimed they had begun their affair three years earlier when the actor followed him into the showers of a Los Angeles health club.

This notorious figure, who frequents a sleazy sub-culture just below the glamorous surface of Tinseltown, later retracted his damaging allegations — after having discussions with Travolta’s lawyer.

He claimed he had been in the middle of a nervous breakdown. Later still, however, he announced he regretted his retraction.

Barresi’s testimony should be treated with suspicion, not just because of its inconsistency but due to his involvement with Anthony 'The Pelican' Pellicano, the infamous private detective to the stars.

Pellicano, a violent former Chicago debt collector who once worked for Michael Jackson, is said by sources in Hollywood to have kept a secret file on Travolta, along with hundreds of other movie stars, studio executives and showbusiness figures.

He was jailed three years ago after he was implicated in death threats made to a reporter investigating alleged links between hard man actor Steven Seagal and the Mafia.

FBI agents found a stash of weapons and explosives in the detective’s Beverly Hills offices. Earlier this year, he was charged with a series of illegal wiretaps on the phones of his famous former clients.

Barresi, who also set himself up as a private eye, worked as a right-hand man to Pellicano.

It was in the wake of Barresi’s original claims, however, that Travolta — who at 37 was still a bachelor — announced his sudden engagement to Kelly Preston, with whom he starred in the forgettable 1989 comedy The Experts.

Given his haste to walk down the aisle — their first Scientology ceremony in Paris in September 1991 was declared invalid, so they hurriedly remarried a week later in Florida — their wedding raised eyebrows among sceptics.

The actor’s only previous serious relationship was in the mid Seventies with the actress Diana Hyland, 18 years his senior.

The couple moved in together after they met while making a TV movie. But less than a year after they became an item, she died of breast cancer.

Despite the gossip, his marriage to 43-year-old Miss Preston is one of the most enduring in the movie business, and they have two children, Jett, 14, and six-year-old Ella.

Their three homes include a state-of-the-art £14 million Florida mansion — built to resemble an airport terminal and which has parking for trained pilot Travolta’s Boeing and Gulfstream II jets, plus its own mile-and-a-half runway.

He invested in his passion for aircraft after his acting career, which had languished in the doldrums for years, was revived by his part in director Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 black comedy Pulp Fiction.

The role put him back at the top of the Hollywood earnings league. But his renewed success only intensified the gossip about his private life.

He has courted controversy by his continued and vocal support for Scientology, which teaches that humans are descended from space aliens known as Thetans, who were banished to Earth 75 million years ago. Travolta, who joined the church in 1975 — three years before he found international fame alongside Olivia Newton-John in Grease — is one of the most senior members of the sect.

He has reached the level of Operating Thetan VII, which is just one step below the top rung of the organisation.

To reach this level, Scientology insiders told the Mail this week, he has had to go through a process known as 'auditing' during which he was instructed to reveal his innermost secrets to the church’s leaders.

Such claims have led to frenzied and groundless speculation that the marriage between the couple (the once-divorced Miss Preston was a Scientologist before she met Travolta) was arranged by the church to hide his sexuality. It should be stated this rumour is laughed off by those close to the couple.

One associate told the Mail: "This nonsense has followed them around for years. It’s the sort of garbage that is spewed out by people who simply can’t accept they are a loving couple with two great kids and fantastic careers."

Perhaps not such a fantastic career in recent years, when you consider Travolta’s most recent appearances on screen have led to critical maulings.

His lavish (and truly awful) 2000 epic Battlefield Earth, which was based on the sci-fi writing of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, has gone down as one of the most expensive flops in cinema history.

Certainly, his involvement with the sect has, as with his close friend Tom Cruise (who has endured his own share of tittle-tattle about his sexuality), done little to enhance his reputation.

At the same time, the star has of late been fighting a losing battle to maintain his one-time sex symbol image. Six weeks ago, he was photographed looking bloated and fat in a pair of too-tight swimming trunks on the film set of the appropriately titled Wild Hogs in New Mexico.

Sources close to Travolta also say he is increasingly troubled by his receding hairline and has taken to wearing expensive wigs for filming and public appearances.

He is said to be pinning much on his role as J.R. Ewing in the film version of Dallas, which is due to begin filming next month, despite the setback of J-Lo pulling out before the cameras have begun to roll.

The production has been beset by rows and disruption, with the original director, Robert Luketic, walking out.

Which makes the timing of that tabloid picture of Travolta kissing a man all the more worrying. Last night, his spokesman Paul Bloch was mounting a spirited offensive against the latest gay suggestions.

"John will often kiss a friend, male or female, hello or goodbye. It indicates nothing," he said. None of which is likely to silence the chattering at Tinseltown’s restaurant tables.

One senior Los Angeles casting director told the Mail: "Whatever the truth, those pictures are an absolute disaster for John.

"Hollywood likes to know where it stands with its leading men. Everyone is happy for stars to do whatever they like, as long as it is in private.

"As soon as damaging stuff about an actor’s private life comes out, people start to get twitchy about investing millions of dollars in their films.

"That’s what has happened to Tom Cruise and I can see John going the same way.

"For all I know, that kiss was completely innocent, but we all know that is not the way a lot of the public will see it."

Which might just make the ever-vigilant Travolta that extra bit careful before he indulges in any more carefree public displays of affection.