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Travolta knew about her sickness, but mentioned it to none of his friends. He said only that she was hospitalized for back trouble. "I used to make deals with myself," he remembers. "If she'd survive, I'd sacrifice seeing her again." He flew to California to be with her at the last, then went to Brooklyn to finish the movie. Says Travolta, "I would have married her." With seven months of analysis behind him, Travolta turned to Scientology to get him through the bad time. "He put his attention to the work and overcame his emotional feelings," Director John Badham recalls. "Some of the best scenes in the movie were done during that period."
No longer flummoxed by what Scientology calls "the low tones," Travolta now lives by himself —quietly, and quite simply—in a penthouse apartment in West Hollywood. The place, decorated in what might be called bachelor functional, has lately undergone some sprucing up after a magazine article described the digs as drab. It also currently houses his buddy Jerry and Fever Co-Star Donna Pescow, who are both searching for their own digs. There is a pool table, an Advent TV screen and many prized airplane models, though he no longer spends much time gluing the things together himself. Travolta's fascination with planes is not limited to miniatures; he began taking flying lessons at 16, bought a sporty single-engine Aircoupe for $5,000 a few years ago and now owns a twin-engine DC-3 big enough to accommodate not only his whole family but a flock of friends as well.
Travolta spends his scarce free time with close friends such as English-born Actress Kate Edwards, Jerry Wurms and Marilu Henner, or—as on one weekend—hunting for some rural real estate in the $50,000 to $200,000 range. An evening at a favorite Japanese restaurant on Sunset Strip is likely to be interrupted by autograph hunters, who receive a friendly greeting but sometimes no signature.
"Autographs are sort of impersonal," he told some fans recently, extending his hand, "but I'd like to meet you." A lot of the fans are young and pretty, but Travolta resists temptation. "Before I was famous, I had what you would call one-night experiences," he reflects. "But I find these are much more exciting in my fantasies than in reality." If there is no steady girl in the picture, there are plenty of contracts, deals, packages and gross points to preoccupy him.