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, singer, producer, director and screenwriter. [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 old boy with autism 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 is married to Wendy Shawn [15] (daughter of comedian Dick Shawn) [16] and they have one daughter, Rachel.
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); he directed the 2009 short I Am Autism.
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor. He came to public attention during the 1970s, appearing on the television sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter (1975–1979) and starring in the box office successes Carrie (1976), Saturday Night Fever (1977), Grease (1978), and Urban Cowboy (1980). His acting career declined throughout the 1980s, but he enjoyed a resurgence in the 1990s with his role in Pulp Fiction (1994), and went on to star in films including Get Shorty (1995), Broken Arrow (1996), Phenomenon (1996), Face/Off (1997), A Civil Action (1998), Primary Colors (1998), Hairspray (2007), and Bolt (2008).
Kelly Kamalelehua Smith, known professionally as Kelly Preston, was an American actress. She appeared in more than 60 television and film productions, including Mischief (1985), Twins (1988), Jerry Maguire (1996), and For Love of the Game (1999). She married John Travolta in 1991, and collaborated with him on the comedy film The Experts (1989) and the biographical film Gotti (2018). She also starred in the films SpaceCamp (1986), The Cat in the Hat (2003), What a Girl Wants (2003), Sky High (2005), and Old Dogs (2009).
Garry Kent Marshall was an American filmmaker and actor. He started his career in the 1960s writing for The Lucy Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show before he developed Neil Simon's 1965 play The Odd Couple for television in 1970. He gained fame for creating Happy Days (1974–1984), Laverne and Shirley (1976–1983), and Mork and Mindy (1978–1982). He is also known for directing The Flamingo Kid (1984), Overboard (1987), Beaches (1988), Pretty Woman (1990), Runaway Bride (1999), and the family films The Princess Diaries (2001) and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004). He also directed the romantic comedy ensemble films Valentine's Day (2010), New Year's Eve (2011), and Mother's Day (2016).
Diego Dionisio Luna Alexander is a Mexican actor, director, and producer. He is known for his portrayal of Cassian Andor in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and the Disney+ series Andor.
Gael García Bernal is a Mexican actor and producer. He is known for his performances in the films Bad Education (2004), The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), Amores perros (2000), Y tu mamá también (2001), Babel (2006), Coco (2017), and Old (2021), for his role as the titular character in the television special Werewolf by Night, and for his role as Rodrigo de Souza in the series Mozart in the Jungle.
John Randal Kleiser is an American film and television director, producer, screenwriter and actor, best known for directing the 1978 musical romantic-comedy film Grease.
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 counter culture 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.
Miguel Arteta is a Puerto Rican director of film and television, known for his independent film Chuck & Buck (2000), for which he received the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award, and for the films The Good Girl (2002) and Cedar Rapids (2011).
Friðrik Þór Friðriksson, sometimes credited as Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, is an Icelandic film director and producer.
Kevin Connolly is an American actor and director. He is best known for his role as Eric Murphy in the HBO series Entourage, and his role as the eldest son Ryan Malloy in the 1990s television sitcom Unhappily Ever After. Connolly is also a director, having directed many episodes of television as well as the films Gardener of Eden, Dear Eleanor, and Gotti.
Cecilia Peck is an American film producer, director and actress. She is the only daughter of actor Gregory Peck and his second wife Veronique Passani.
Normal People Scare Me: A Film about Autism is a documentary film about autism, produced by Joey Travolta. The documentary initially began as a 10-minute short film co-directed by an autistic teenager named Taylor Cross, and his mother Keri Bowers. Joey Travolta first met Cross at a program Travolta led teaching the art of filmmaking to children with special needs. He helped educate Cross about filmmaking, and the documentary was expanded into a feature-length film. It includes interviews with 65 people, including those who are autistic as well as friends and family. Cross asks them about their experiences with autism and how they feel about it, and elicits multiple insightful responses from his subjects.
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 Story of Luke is a 2012 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Alonso Mayo. It is Mayo's first feature-length film and tells the story of Luke, a young man with autism who embarks on a quest for a job and a girlfriend. It stars Lou Taylor Pucci, Seth Green, Cary Elwes and Kristin Bauer.
Alonso Mayo is a Peruvian film director and screenwriter best known for his independent film The Story of Luke (2012). He has won a Student Academy Award.
Camila Rebeca Morrone Polak is an Argentine-American model and actress. She made her acting debut in the James Franco film Bukowski and subsequently appeared in the films Death Wish and Never Goin' Back, both premiering at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2018.
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.
The Oceanside International Film Festival (OIFF) is an annual film festival based in Oceanside, a town in North County of San Diego. It was founded in 2009 by the Oceanside Cultural Foundation.
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