Saturday Night Fever In Lambert’s Cove

He needed not a guru, not a girl friend, not a dance partner, but a nanny, and he hired one to look after him at his beach house in Malibu, but we’ll get to that presently.

In the summer of ’77, just as John Travolta was preparing (or actually not preparing) for his leap from TV stardom in Welcome Back, Kotter to wild movie star frenzy with the release of Saturday Night Fever –- are you conjuring him up now in his white polyester suit, arm pointing to the next galaxy, hips swiveling with an oomph that would have made Elvis jealous (does that rhyme?!) – the shy young actor stayed with Carly Simon and James Taylor in their 27-acre homestead off Lambert’s Cove Rd, with pond, pool, tennis, and over 5K square feet in the main house.

Now, Travolta had already billeted with Carly and James in their 9-bedroom apartment in NY overlooking Central Park. He stayed for quite a while; apparently a guess-who’s-coming-for-dinner kind of long-term guest. And . . . I’m guessing here, but maybe Carly mommied the boy star, and that was just what he needed, Big Fame having been foisted on him without an adjustment period.

So maybe she made him pancakes, asked him, "What up?" after a day away and, oh, they also had an affair somewhere along the line that Carly reported to Helen Brown who wrote it up in the Telegraph. Carly also confided to People Magazine in 1980 that Travolta “is sensitive, loving and always there.”

Be that as it may, Travolta arrived on the Vineyard, surprised to see a flash mob at the airport to greet him. For the weeks that he resided on Carly and James’ quiet country estate, curiosity-seekers scrambled up the road, and peeked over bushes to get a glimpse of the tall, thin, black-haired, blue-eyed studly new happening dude.

An old bff of Carly’s recently told me that, one time during Travolta’s visit, she dropped by and found Mr. Gorgeous alone in the house. The bff complimented him on his dance moves in Fever. He said, “It’s easy! Anyone can learn!”

He cranked up the stereo with a blast of the Bee Gees. He gave her a stunning tutorial on the moves. Before long, she was flinging her arms, and bopping her hips, between bouts of his twirling and jittering her about.

“I had a ball!” she said.

Who wouldn’t?! In anyone's Life Review, this qualifies as a Top 10 event!

Even so, this friend of Carly’s had a sense that young John Travolta was lonely, retiring, and vulnerable to the deluge of attention from the outside world.

In the summer of ’78, after the release of Grease (another rhyme! damn!), our hero rented a Malibu beach house next door to a friend of mine whom we’ll call Geraldine.

Geraldine noticed an older, trimly-dressed English woman in residence. Hmm. . . an unusual taste in girlfriends? After a conversation over the picket fence (actually over the thundering surf) with the lady in question, Geraldine learned she was a licensed live-in nanny, and had been hired as such, a strict version of the personal assistant, someone who would make certain her charge took his vitamins (she would have pronounced it vit (as in wit)-a-mins), set up play dates, and tucked him under the covers no later than 10 p.m. In other words, someone to watch over him, perhaps the way Carly had done. Without benefits. Presumably. 

Occasionally this nanny may have flown off with an umbrella, `a la Mary Poppins, but mostly she stayed in the beach house to keep the movie star’s life on track.

One more story: Marty and I had a fun episode with Travolta during the fall of 1980. In those days, we hung out nightly at the Improvisation in Los Angeles, and Richard Lewis, now best known for his role as himself on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, was a struggling standup comic, and a dear friend of ours.

Richard was dating Debra Winger, who had ignited the cinema with the release of Urban Cowboy, co-starring John Travolta. (Funny side story: Richard said that during the weeks of high romance with Debra, his answering machine recorded messages for Richard such as, “Hi, it’s Marty Nadler, hi, it’s Bud Friedman [owner of the Improv], along with messages for Debra, “Hi, it’s Robert Altman, saluto, this is Frederico Fellini.”)

So Marty and I met Richard and Debra for a late supper at the Moustache across from the Improv. When all four of us were seated, Debra said, “John’s in town, hope you don’t mind that I asked him to join us. He sounded like he could use some company.”

So Richard and Marty ordered the famous Moustache chocolate soufflé. “I’m sorry,” said the snotty waiter. “The kitchen closes in half an hour, and the chocolate soufflé takes sixty minutes to bake.”

Twenty-five minutes later, John Travolta joined us, smiling, bashful, saying little. When the waiter returned, John requested the chocolate soufflé. The waiter said, “Coming right up, Mr. Travolta!”

The next morning, Richard called Marty and groused, “How do you like that? We order chocolate soufflés, and it’s nothin’ doin’. Travolta orders a chocolate soufflé, and the waiter brings him a chocolate soufflé AND rare coins!”

Marty said, “There was probably a Jewish dentist from Encino in the back room going, ‘What happened to my chocolate soufflé?’”

So the rest is Hollywood history. Travolta has never returned to the Island. Does he still have a nanny? Well, he has a wife, that’s arguably the same thing.

So will he return to Martha's Vineyard? Let’s hope so! And let me put it right out there: Mr. Travolta, we’d love to learn those old dance moves! We’ve become way too serious: Time to bring back Disco!

We can be serious too, but between sloughs of despond, we can lower the spinning glass ball and “[We] could be dancin’ . . . yeah, dancin’, yeah!”