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If any more proof be needed, then the scene on the bench facing the Verrazano Bridge is the clincher. Travolta speaks of the building of the bridge, all its specifications and statistics, like a man surveying an escape route from Brooklyn he is not sure he can ever take. His girl—the one he has been trying unsuccessfully to put the make on—hears the longing and the edge of desperation in his voice and kisses him on the cheek. He makes no move toward her, does not, in fact, even look at her. His eyes are full, and he is crying. Travolta says now that the welling tears surprised him as much as anyone else, and they may be a sentimental, softening gesture toward his character. But they also make the scene something that lingers in the memory long after the flash has faded and the beat has died.
Just now, Travolta holds the winning hand; or most of it, anyhow. There is no wild card. No overheated tales of profligacy and indulgence. No seamy revelations. The usual insinuations, to be sure, but no backstairs gossip that is verifiable, no sagas of ruinous excess and careening self-destruction. Superstars very often provide their own portfolio of legends to join the ones fashioned for the screen: the abandon of Brando, the hipster brashness of James Dean. If the material isn't available, then the superstars get tagged with it—De Niro is alleged to be Garboesque, Pacino sullen and distant, Redford some kind of Crunchy Granola mystic who holes up alone in Utah.
Travolta cannot be immune to this mythmaking process. Like autograph hounds, it comes with the territory, and the quiet kid from Englewood, N.J., is already getting typed as a kind of Steiff Toy hoodlum. This has something to do, of course, with the parts that have brought him fame: Vinnie Barbarino in Kotter, Tony in Saturday Night Fever, even Danny Zuko, the cuddly tough guy in Grease, all rough-and-ready proles with a hint of self-mockery and a double dose of wistfulness. Travolta's low profile will be his best chance of holding onto his privacy and whatever portion of himself he wishes to preserve for his intimates. The public Travolta, personable and shy, canny and eager, is like a picture in a child's coloring book, where only the bold, broad outlines of a figure are provided. The drawing will take any colors you want. Only the original artist holds the full, definitive master sketch, which he shares sparingly.
Stories, memories, reflections about Travolta come back a little like your favorite shirts from the cleaners: well laundered and stiff. Marilu Henner, a former Travolta flame from the Grease road company who is still a close friend, was reminiscing recently about how they would skip down the streets of Manhattan's West Side, making up little street improvisations to play out. One rainy day inspired a fantasy of sinister dealings in a dense London fog. "I'd say to him, 'Is 'e coming?' " Marilu laughs. "And John would look over his shoulder and say, 'No, I don't think so.' " Another acquaintance, trying to summon an example of the Travolta wit, could recall only his remark to the husband of a very pregnant wife: "Boy, you must have a high sperm count."