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"Acting is a mix of luck and choice. I got lucky." That's an understatement, as John Travolta seems to be one of the luckiest men in Hollywood. From the beginning of his career through to the present day, it seems as though he's played one iconic and important role after another. While not every project he's touched as turned to gold, all of his work has generally been well-received by critics and fans alike. His fame started in the 1970s, where the hit TV show Welcome Back, Kotter (1975-1979) got his name and face in front of TV viewers in a primetime spot on a regular basis.

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Both Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Grease (1978) came out in the late 1970s, as well, and both of those movies were hits at the time and are still considered hits today. During the 1980s his career was at a low, but he was still working and making films. He just wasn't seeing the commercial success he saw in the 1970s. But that all changed in the 1990s, with Pulp Fiction (1994), Face/Off (1997), and other films. Since that time he's worked steadily again. But how did he get started on his TV and film career, and what does he plan to do next? Here's what you need to know about the talented actor's long career.

Growing Up in Jersey, With a Big Family

Travolta was born and raised in Englewood, New Jersey, and is the youngest of six children. His father played football on a semi-professional level, and then became a partner in a tire company. His mother was singer and an actress, and had been in radio and vocal groups before turning her attention to working as an English and drama teacher at the high school level. His siblings all wanted to act, as they were inspired by everything their mother had done in the industry. Travolta went to Dwight Morrow High School and dropped out at 17, in his junior year. He was raised Catholic, but converted to Scientology in 1975.

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When Travolta left high school he moved to New York City and got a role in the musical Grease with a touring company. He was also on Broadway with Over Here! But he wasn't in New York that long, before he decided that Los Angeles would be a better fit for his career. Professional reasons took him across the country, to settle in California. He had some small roles, and then was cast at Billy Nolan in the film Carrie (1976). That was right around the same time he landed his role in Welcome Back, Kotter, in which his sister also played a part.

Since that time he has played a number of roles and a wide variety of characters. About that, Travolta has said, "The good and wonderful thing about my whole career is that I've always felt that the audience, if I do it well, will track wherever I go, whether it's President or a lawyer or bad guy or good. All I have to do is execute the material enough where they buy into it. I've had the great luxury of the audiences accepting that." In 1980, Travolta starred with Debra Winger in Urban Cowboy. After that film he was in several that performed poorly, and that slowed his career down. But he wasn't about to give up.

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Coming Back to the Screen in the 1990s

"I'm from a working-class family," Travolta has said, "We didn't have a lot, but we had the arts. You're talking to a guy who is making a living at doing what he loves doing - acting, singing and dancing. So any career ups and downs were not that significant to me; the only things that really powerfully impinged on me were my losses, and there were many in my life." It's good that changes in his career weren't going to bother him, because most of the 1980s looked rather bleak. Then in the 1990s he starred in Pulp Fiction and other movies, and everything was back on the upswing again.

He received an Academy Award nomination for that role, and it put him right back on the A-List of celebrities who were in demand in Hollywood. During the 1990s he starred in or had roles in numerous films that had both critical and commercial success. In the 2000s, that success continued with movies such as Swordfish (2001), and The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009). He married Kelly Preston in 1991, and the couple had three children together. In 2009, Travolta's special-needs son Jett passed away after suffering a seizure, leading Travolta to create a Foundation to help special-needs children with resources and support.