Joey Travolta | |
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 Travolta in 2018 | |
| Born | Joseph Allen Travolta October 14, 1950 Englewood, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1979–present |
| Spouse | Wendy Shawn (m. 1980) |
| Children | 1 |
| Relatives | John Travolta (brother) Ellen Travolta (sister) Margaret Travolta (sister) |
Joseph Allen Travolta (born October 14, 1950) is an American actor. [1] He is the older brother of actor John Travolta. [1]
Travolta was born and raised in Englewood, New Jersey, a nearby suburb of New York City, where he attended Dwight Morrow High School. [2] His father, Salvatore Travolta, was a semi-professional football player turned tire salesman and partner in a tire company. [3] His mother, Helen Cecilia (née Burke; 1912–1978), was an actress and singer who had appeared in The Sunshine Sisters, a radio vocal group, and acted and directed before becoming a high school drama and English teacher. His father was a second-generation Italian American and his mother was Irish American. [4] He is one of six children including actors John Travolta, Ellen Travolta and Margaret Travolta. [5]
He graduated from Paterson State College with a degree in special education in 1974. [6] [7]
Travolta began a singing career in 1978 as a recording artist on Casablanca Records, releasing his eponymous album. The following year he made his acting debut starring in the feature film Sunnyside for Filmways Productions. He then became a guest star in the 1980s television show Simon & Simon (episode: "The Hottest Ticket in Town").[ citation needed ]
Additional acting credits include work with director John Landis on multiple feature film projects: Amazon Women on the Moon (1987), Beverly Hills Cop III (1994), Oscar (1991), and Susan's Plan (1998). He was also a series regular on the WB television hit Movie Stars (1999).[ citation needed ]
Stage performances include starring roles in Bye Bye Birdie , Guys and Dolls , and West Side Story . He wrote and directed Diva Las Vegas in 1989, which went on to win the Italian Funny Film Festival.[ citation needed ]
In 1991, Joey Travolta produced and starred in Da Vinci's War. He later produced and starred in the sequel, To the Limit (1995). He made directing his main priority in 1994. He directed the action thrillers Hard Vice (1994) and Navajo Blues (1996). Subsequent titles include Earth Minus Zero (1996), Laws of Deception (1997), Detour (1999), Mel (1996), Partners (2000), Enemies of Laughter (2000), and Waiting to Live (2002).[ citation needed ]
For television audiences he directed the police drama L.A. Heat (1999), Friday Night After the Movies (2010), and the syndicated Disney series Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show (2007). He has directed music videos as well such as Aqua's Doctor Jones and Latvia's entry, in Eurovision Song Contest 2008, Pirates of the Sea .[ citation needed ]
Travolta has worked as a special education teacher in New Jersey. In 2005, he produced a documentary film called Normal People Scare Me , directed by a 15 year old autistic boy whom he mentored. [8] Around this time, he founded Inclusion Films, which involve individuals with special needs in the process of making films. [9] [10]
He has collaborated with a non-profit organization called HEAL to form a Jacksonville, Florida based HEAL Film Camp with Joey Travolta. [11]
In 2019, Travolta directed Carol of the Bells for Inclusion Films starring R.J. Mitte as an adoptee who discovers his biological mother has Down Syndrome. 70% of the crew had developmental disabilities. [12] The film won the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 2019 San Diego International Film Festival. [13] His next feature film titled Let's Work premiered at SDIFF in the documentary competition in October 2020. [14] Travolta’s Inclusion Films continues to employ special needs filmmakers.
Travolta is married to Wendy Shawn, [15] daughter of comedian Dick Shawn. [16]
Alfonso Cuarón Orozco is a Mexican filmmaker. He is known for directing films in a variety of genres, including the family drama A Little Princess (1995), the romantic drama Great Expectations (1998), the coming of age road film Y tu mamá también (2001), the fantasy film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), science fiction films such as Children of Men (2006) and Gravity (2013) and the semi-autobiographical drama Roma (2018).
Bernard Rimland was an American research psychologist, writer, lecturer, and influential person in the field of developmental disorders. Rimland's first book, Infantile Autism, sparked by the birth of a son who had autism, was instrumental in changing attitudes toward the disorder. Rimland founded and directed two advocacy groups: the Autism Society of America (ASA) and the Autism Research Institute. He promoted several since disproven theories about the causes and treatment of autism, including vaccine denial, facilitated communication, chelation therapy, and false claims of a link between secretin and autism. He also supported the ethically controversial practice of using aversives on autistic children.
Dick Shawn was an American actor and comedian. He played a wide variety of supporting roles and was a prolific character actor. During the 1960s, he played small roles in madcap comedies, usually portraying caricatures of counterculture personalities, such as the hedonistic but mother-obsessed Sylvester Marcus in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and the hippie actor Lorenzo Saint DuBois ("L.S.D.") in The Producers (1967). Besides his film work, he appeared in numerous television shows from the 1960s through the 1980s.
Steve Monarque is a New York-based actor, director, writer and musician.
Autism Every Day is a controversial 2006 documentary film sponsored by Autism Speaks, and produced by Lauren Thierry, Jim Watkins and Eric Solomon. It follows mothers of high support needs autistic children, and consists mainly of interviews with the mothers.
Autism: The Musical is an independent documentary film directed by Tricia Regan. In April 2007, the film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City. The film recounts six months of the lives of five children who are on the autism spectrum in Los Angeles, California as they write and rehearse for an original stage production.
The Horse Boy is the title of an autobiographical book and a documentary feature film that follow the quest of Rupert Isaacson and his wife, Kristen Neff, to find healing for their autistic son, Rowan, after discovering that Rowan's condition appears to be improved by contact with horses. The family leave their home in Texas on an arduous journey to Mongolia.
Normal People Scare Me: A Film about Autism is a 2006 American documentary film about autism, produced by Joey Travolta. The project began as a 10-minute short film co-directed by an autistic teenager named Taylor Cross, and his mother Keri Bowers. Travolta first met Cross at a program Travolta led teaching the art of filmmaking to children with special needs. He mentored Cross, and the documentary was expanded into a feature-length film.
Fly Away is a 2011 American drama film written and directed by Janet Grillo, and starring Beth Broderick, Ashley Rickards, Greg Germann, JR Bourne, and Reno.
Inclusion Films is a company started in 2007 by filmmaker Joey Travolta that aims to teach the art of film making to people with developmental disabilities. There are seven locations in California as well as traveling camps for youths with special needs. The first school opened in Bakersfield in 2011; other locations include: Sacramento, Livermore, San Bernardino, San Diego, Stockton, and San Jose, California.
The Reason I Jump: One Boy's Voice from the Silence of Autism is a biography attributed to Naoki Higashida, a nonverbal autistic person from Japan. It was first published in Japan in 2007. The English translation, by Keiko Yoshida and her husband, English author David Mitchell, was published in 2013.
William Davenport is a documentary filmmaker, musician, publisher, writer, teacher and autism activist. He is best known for his documentary films about autism, also for his work as the publisher of Unsound magazine, and as the founding member of the experimental/noise band Problemist.
Deej is a 2017 documentary about David James (DJ) Savarese, a nonspeaking autistic teenager with disabilities who is depicted as communicating through the scientifically discredited facilitated communication technique. The film's unskeptical depiction of facilitated communication, including the claims that DJ's degree from Oberlin College is legitimate, and that he is the author of the film's script, have been the subject of criticism.
Loving Lampposts is a 2010 documentary film directed by Todd Drezner, exploring the neurodiversity movement and the principle of autism acceptance through a series of interviews and candid footage. Drezner is the father of an autistic child whose attachment to and fascination with lampposts gave the film its title.
Pablo is a British children's television series that premiered on CBeebies on 2 October 2017. It was created by Grainne McGuinness. The series follows the adventures of Pablo, a five year old autistic boy, and his imaginary anthropomorphized animal friends, the Book Animals, who go on adventures in Pablo's 'Art World'. It is a hybrid of live action sequences and 2D animation. The series features a voice cast and writing team who are all on the autistic spectrum.
Jason Haynes is a fictional character from the BBC medical drama Holby City, played by Jules Robertson. He first appeared in the series eighteen episode "A Partnership, Literally", broadcast on 9 February 2016, and stayed until the show's final episode: "Episode 1102", which was broadcast on 29 March 2022. the Jason arrives at Holby City hospital to work as a porter after being introduced as the nephew of Consultant Serena Campbell. Robertson was cast after he impressed producers after auditioning against several other actors. Jason has Asperger syndrome and Robertson is the first non-neurotypical actor to play a non-neurotypical character in an ongoing role. Robertson has stated that his own experience with autism helped him portray Jason accurately. He is characterised as a nice man, who Robertson describes as "geeky and shy" and lacking a sense of humour.
A Boy Called Po is a 2016 American drama film directed by John Asher and written by Colin Goldman, based on a true story starring Christopher Gorham, Julian Feder, and Kaitlin Doubleday. When his wife dies of cancer, an overworked engineer struggles to care for his son with autism. In response to bullying, the young boy regresses into a fantasy world escape. The score for the film was composed by Burt Bacharach.
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