Word: barbarino
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...John Travolta is making lots of green Oh. How did he get beyond Barbarino? He deserves, for all his "Stayin' Alive"s A pat on the head. With a couple sharp knives. You can bet that that would please the next zany. OH! Man Smiles: Ayatollah Khomeini. (Think they read The Crimson in Iran?) A Prettier face is Princess Diana...
...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...
Things looked up after that; how could they not? Johnny landed the Barbarino role in Kotter and started his steep, fast climb. He was passed over for a role he badly wanted in The Last Detail but won a prime supporting part in Director Brian DePalma's nightmare fairy tale, Carrie. He had already broken up with Marilu, but while working on Carrie he had become the hottest hood on TV since The Fonz. Four-color posters were being printed, and record contracts were in negotiation...
Travolta is funny throughout the movie, in the tough yet naive way he has perfected in his role as Vinnie Barbarino on T.V.'s "Welcome Back, Kotter." He turns in a creditable performance, even if his range of emotions is somewhat limited. As for Gorney--well, she is best when dancing and not saying much, so she never rises above her phony pretensions or her background, as Tony finally does. The rest of the cast is routine, but for the most part they play their parts adequately...
...dropped out of his Englewood high school-a harsher, drug-ridden version of the happy school in Kotter after his second year, and soon landed summer stock roles, a part in an off-Broadway revival of Rain and the first of his 40 TV commercials. The role of Barbarino was a natural for him-"I knew that character from high school," he says-and soon after Roller's Dremiere in 1975 he was receiving 5,000 fan letters a week. "Before Kotter," says Lois Zetter, who works on his music deals, 'John was merely lovable, someone you wanted...