When Kelly Preston first met John Travolta, he swept her right off her feet, no airplane or gravity-defying dance moves required.
It was 1987 and the actress was waiting to do her screen test for a spy caper called The Experts, when she looked up and saw the star of Saturday Night Fever and Grease stroll into the room with his two dogs.
“Yeah, no kidding,” Preston said, agreeing with Andy Cohen as he acknowledged what that must have been like, during her 2018 visit to Watch What Happens Live.
Travolta has remembered the moment he first saw Preston just as fondly, telling Us Weekly in 2018, “She came in, this…this gorgeous woman. We had an immediate chemistry.”
“I remember she was going down the steps,” Travolta recalled. “And I was on top, and I said, ‘May I ask you a question?’ and she said, ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘What’s it like to be married? Is it a good thing?'”
Preston had been Mrs. Kevin Gage since 1985, and though she was candid about it not being the perfect union later (telling Cohen, “I was not happily married”), she played it cool in the moment.
“She said, ‘I love it,'” Travolta remembered, “and I thought, ‘Wow, wouldn’t it be great to be married to someone who loves being married?'”
Meanwhile, Preston remembered herself being “like, ‘Oh s–t. Kill me now.’ You know, like, ‘Oh my God.’ And that was my first meeting with him.”
After her divorce in 1987, she lived with George Clooney for awhile and was engaged to Charlie Sheen, which ended spectacularly badly. (The shooting was a “complete accident,” Preston later explained.)
But as fate would have it, she and Travolta reunited to make The Experts.
He recalled how a perceptive mutual friend had told him before their 1987 screen test, “‘You’re going to meet this girl and you’re going to fall in love with her, and you’re going to want to get married.'”
Travolta, dad to daughter Ella Bleu, 23, and son Benjamin, 12, with Preston, has used social media more often for family updates, happy to show off Ella’s New York Fashion Week debut or Ben’s gymnastic feats. And, since her passing in July 2020, he never misses a tribute on his her birthday or Mother’s Day.
“We miss and love you very much,” he wrote in wishing her happy birthday in 2021, almost 31 years after he proposed in Gstaad, Switzerland, on New Year’s Eve in 1990, slipping a 6-carat diamond ring on Preston’s finger.
They got married on Sept. 5, 1991, at the Hotel de Crillon in Paris, then retied the knot two weeks later in the U.S. to make it legal.
“We plan to have some babies,” she told Entertainment Tonight before the wedding. “We’re practicing right now. This could be barefoot and pregnant for the next 10 years.”
Son Jett was born on April 13, 1992, having been conceived—according to what Travolta cheekily shared with Premiere magazine in 1996—during a night when the newlyweds were house guests of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore.
Aside from 1989’s Look Who’s Talking and its 1990 sequel, Travolta’s movie star status seemed to be on the wane in the early 1990s—until Pulp Fiction rocketed him back into pop culture relevancy in 1994.
Preston continued to work regularly, most notably in the likes of Jerry Maguire, Addicted to Love, Jack Frost, For Love of the Game and What a Girl Wants, but she slowed down a bit to focus on family after Ella was born in 2000.
She and her husband also appeared in several movies together. Battlefield Earth, Old Dogs (also featuring Ella) and Gotti aren’t going to be the John-and-Kelly moments they’re remembered for, but they loved working together when they could.
“Although they’re completely different from us, there’s a few similarities,” Preston shared with E! News at the Gotti premiere in 2018, referring to their roles as mob boss John Gotti and his wife Victoria. “We’ve been together for a long time, we love each other, we adore our kids—and then you’re playing characters.”
And off-screen, keep talking and having fun.
“Communication is huge,” Preston told Us Weekly in 2018. “Continue playing. People will let their marriage go but you have to have fun, play, have date night, you know, make it last.
Then not much had changed over the course of their marriage, since she told Health in 2011 that one of the secrets to their lasting relationship was, “We check in with each other: What’s wanted and needed? We keep it alive and playful and fun. And we don’t push each other’s buttons.”
Asked on Watch What Happens Live what the best thing about being married to Travolta was, Preston replied, beaming as she thought about it, “There’s too many best things.”
But she came up with a few.
“His lips, dancing, fun, laughing!” And they did really still dance “all the time,” she said. “All the time. The kids dance with us, we dance at the house, we go out dancing. Yeah, I love it.”
Preston added, “He’s the nicest guy you’ve ever met, the sweetest.”
And, of course, there was all the flying.
“I’ll be sitting there [at home in Florida] doing something really normal with the kids and then all of a sudden I hear, ‘Whoosh!’ and see the lights of the airplane and he’s like, ‘Honey, I’m home!'” Preston told Health. (The family’s home in Ocala, Fla., is in a gated community for aviators, where there’s room for residents to park their planes.)
Travolta told Parade, “Our time on the plane is special for all of us because it’s only us in an enclosed area where there are no interruptions and we just get to be with each other. Flight time is a truly special time for us.”
Tragedy struck in January 2009, when Jett died at 16 after suffering a seizure while the family was vacationing in the Bahamas.
“Jett was the most wonderful son that two parents could ever ask for and lit up the lives of everyone he encountered,” the couple said in a statement at the time. “We are heartbroken that our time with him was so brief. We will cherish the time that we had with him for the rest of our lives.”
In his memory they started the Jett Travolta Foundation to provide assistance to children with disabilities.
The couple understandably did not speak much about their loss publicly. A longtime Scientologist, like her husband, Preston made a rare mention of their faith in her Health interview when talking about how she recovered from their son’s death.
“Johnny is definitely my rock. Kirstie [Alley] is one of my absolute best friends,” Preston said. “My mom, my brother. And to be honest, the Scientology Center. I don’t know if I would have made it through without it. We’ve been able to navigate through it and to come to a place that is a lot better.”
Talking to the BBC in 2014, Travolta admitted of that terrible time, “The truth is, I didn’t know if I was going to make it. Life was no longer interesting to me, so it took a lot to get me better.”
He too credited his Scientology community “for supporting me for two years solid, I mean Monday through Sunday. They didn’t take a day off, working through different angles of the techniques to get through grief and loss, and to make me feel that finally I could get through a day.”
Then, Preston and Travolta had welcomed their son Benjamin on Nov. 23, 2010. Preston was 48 when he was born, and they called her pregnancy a “miracle.”
Talking to Health, which featured her and Ben on the cover together, Preston reiterated, “We had been trying for quite a few years, and then of course there was a time when we weren’t, and then we started trying again. When I found out I was pregnant, I was floored. I’d snuck out of bed and then came back and woke Johnny up in bed. We both started crying. It was wonderful.”
She was also grateful that she was able to be a “hands-on mom,” and both she and John doted on Ella and Ben.
“I absolutely adore my kids. Johnny and I love them up constantly,” Preston shared. “Ella’s like, ‘Mom, ugh! Thank god you had Ben because now he can take some of the kisses!’ And Johnny sings to them—a lot of Tony Bennett and Barbra Streisand.”
Through the years, Preston and Travolta always took time out for romance, often with the assistance of the pilot’s license the actor has had since the 1980s.
“I think it’s when Johnny just whisks me away, and we’ll jump on the airplane and go out to dinner, and I don’t know where we’re going,” Preston described a perfect date night to People in 2018. “It’s good to be married to a pilot!”
The Mischief star was aware that there aren’t too many people who can identify with her casual jet-setting ways, but she was intent on showing gratitude for every gift life had bestowed on her.
“I appreciate it all the time. It’s not something you ever really get used to,” she told Health about her husband pulling his plane into the hangar the way a regular person puts his car in the garage.
“For a lot of people, getting older means you start slowing down,” Preston also said. “I don’t think you have to. A lot of it is mind-set.”
Asked what she knew at 48 that she didn’t know at 38, the actress advised, “Don’t sweat the small things. Love your kids like it could be the last moment. Johnny and I really give our kids the space to discover who they are—to make their own choices and to experience the joys of life.”
The day after Mother’s Day 2020, Preston posted photos of Ella and Ben, writing, “My beautiful babies… I love you with all of my heart.”
And her final post on Instagram was a Father’s Day tribute to Travolta, the man who had helped her raise the other loves of her life.
“Happy Father’s Day to the best one I know, we love you,” Preston wrote. Her husband replied, “I love you all so much!”
For a closer look at their family album, read on…
Happy Birthday John
John Travolta celebrated his 70th birthday in 2024 with his family, including their dog Peanut.
Her No. 1 Guy
“Happy Birthday to the man who is always by my side and who is always bringing light and beauty into this world,” Ella Bleu Travolta wrote to her dad alongside a throwback pic of the two. “I love you to the moon and back.”
Look Who’s Getting Older
“I can’t believe my baby boy is now a teenager,” the actor wrote for his and the late Kelly Preston‘s youngest son Benjamin Travolta. “Ben turns 13 today. I love you my son!”
All Grown Up
Ella also couldn’t believe her baby brother is now in his teens. “Happy Birthday my sweetest Benjamin,” she wrote. “It feels like yesterday you were this young and now you’re 13!! I love you!
The Best to Do It
In honor of Father’s Day, Ella wrote to her dad, “Thank you for being the best father and for all of the love and light you bring to the world. I love you to the moon and back.”
Cheers to a New Year
Ella and her dad rang in 2020 together at a black tie affair.
Kiss Sandwich
“Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!” Ella captioned a shot of her parents, just five months before Kelly’s death. “I hope it was filled with lots of love…here’s to eating chocolate with all of your front teeth missing!”
Gone But Not Forgetten
In April 2025, John honored his and Kelly’s son Jett Travolta on what would have been his 33rd birthday: “I miss you so much! Love you forever!”
In 2009, during a family trip to the Bahamas, Jett tragically died at age 16 after suffering from a seizure at their vacation home.
Kelly’s Legacy Lives On
In October 2023, on what would have been Kelly’s 61st birthday, Ella wrote on Instagram, “Happy Birthday mama, I love you so much! Thank you for inspiring me every day.”
His Greatest Role
That would be dad. “It’s privilege to be a father,” the Grease alum said. “I love you my babies.”
The One That He Wants
“Although they’re completely different from us, there’s a few similarities,” Kelly said of their roles as mob boss John Gotti and his wife Victoria Gotti. “We’ve been together for a long time, we love each other, we adore our kids—and then you’re playing characters.”
Say Cheese
They were all smiles as Benjamin celebrated his 9th birthday.
Hoppy Day
The family hopped into the Easter spirit.
‘Twas the Night Before Christmas
And the Travolta family was cuddled up in bed.
The Family Force Is Strong
John, Kellyand their kids had a family night out at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival premiere of Solo: A Star Wars Story.
(Originally published July 13, 2020, at 1:12 p.m. PT)
