Happy Birthday, John Travolta! The Hollywood actor turned 69 on February 18, 2023, just one year away from his landmark 70th. Travolta's career and life has been filled with the highest highs as well as the lowest lows, due to tragedies in his personal life. Learn all about the Hollywood icon...

In 2020, John sadly lost his wife Kelly Preston after a private battle with breast cancer. She was 57. The pair had met on the set of the 1989 film, ‘The Experts.’ They ended up getting engaged in 1991 in Switzerland and welcomed three children. After her death, John shared the tragic news on his Instagram. He wrote: "It is with a very heavy heart that I inform you that my beautiful wife Kelly has lost her two-year battle with breast cancer. She fought a courageous fight with the love and support of so many.”

John remained very close to his ‘Grease’ co-star Olivia Newton-John up until her death in August 2023 at the age of 73 after a lengthy fight with breast cancer. The pair first met on the set of their 1978 musical film. Speaking about their friendship in 2019, he told Us Weekly magazine: "We were together not that long ago, about three months ago, and we text each other all the time.” When Olivia was first diagnosed with breast cancer, he praised her for her courage, saying: “She's doing great and she looks fantastic! I'm so proud of her ... she's pulling it off like I've never seen anybody [do]”.

Another major tragedy in John's life was when his son Jett died in 2009 at just 16 years old after having a seizure and hitting his head on a bathtub. The family was on vacation in the Bahamas when the accident happened. In April 2022, Travolta - who also has a daughter Ella and son Benjamin from his marriage to Kelly - took to his Instagram account to remember Jett on the day he would've turned 30. Alongside a beautiful black and white photo of the pair together, John wrote: "My dearest Jetty, I miss you more than words can say. I think about you everyday. Happy Birthday. Love, your Dad."

John earned his private flying license at the age of 22. But in 1992, he had a near-death experience when the plane he was flying suffered a total electrical failure. John - whose family were on board - had to make an emergency landing in Washington DC, and almost had a collision with a commercial craft during the descent. Fortunately, he was able to land the plane safely. Travolta now owns five private planes and regularly ferries his family and friends around the world.

At the age of 22, while filming ‘The Boy in the Plastic Bubble’, Travolta formed a romantic relationship with his on-screen mother Diana Hyland who was 18 years older than him. The couple dated for a year before Hyland sadly passed away of breast cancer aged 41. Filming for ‘Saturday Night Fever’ halted while he attended her funeral. He later accepted Hyland’s posthumous Emmy Award.

John has expressed that one of his biggest regrets was turning down a role to play Billy Flynn in the movie ‘Chicago'. Richard Gere ended up taking the part instead. The missed opportunity is one of several in John's career. He also turned down the title role in ‘Forrest Gump’, a part which earned Tom Hanks his second Oscar. Even so, John insists he doesn't regret not playing Gump in Robert Zemeckis classic 1994 drama. Speaking to MTV, he said: "If I didn't do something Tom Hanks did, then I did something else that was equally interesting or fun.”

Travolta has played numerous Italian-American parts, but his own family actually has Irish roots. His father was Italian, and his mother was Irish, but the area of New Jersey where he grew up was predominately Irish. So, he was raised with many Irish traditions.

Oprah Winfrey once took the entire studio audience of her talk show on an eight-day all-expenses-paid trip to Australia and John Travolta was the pilot who flew them Down Under. Oprah has described John as one of the most talented actors on the planet. In 1988, John gifted her with a $350,000 Rolls Royce car to thank the media mogul for her friendship over the years.

In 1985, at the White House, John was able to show off his ‘Saturday Night Fever’ dance moves with Princess Diana - who was married to future British monarch King Charles. The Princess of Wales asked John to dance with her, she later named the dress she wore on that night the "Travolta Dress".

John Travolta has been a member of the Church of Scientology since 1975. He first joined the religion after reading L Ron Hubbard’s best-selling book ‘Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health’ while on the set of ‘The Devil’s Rain'.