John Travolta’s “Wife” Dead!

Hollywood is still reeling from the shock of Diana Hyland’s death! Only 41, the young and the world by its tail. She had just started a new TV series. Eight Is Enough, and it seemed to have the potential of a Happy Days or Welcome Back, Kotter. When asked about the show and the possibility of its being a runaway hit, Diana would merely say that she was keeping her fingers crossed, but that only time would tell—and, of course, the Neilsen ratings.

As for her personal life, well, is there anyone who didn’t know that she had become in recent months “the lady” in John Travolta’s life? Is there anyone around who hadn’t heard John and Diana cooing about the new-found romance? John wasn’t concerned about the age difference or that some people cattily remarked that Diana was old enough to be his mother. Smiling at such a comment, John merely shrugged and said: “I don’t know about that. My mother is sixty-five.” He then added exuberantly: “I’m madly in love with Diana, pure and simple! This is the first time I have ever been in love! Her age doesn’t matter to me and mine doesn’t matter to her.

“All my love affairs with young girls—and I always had four or five beautiful actress seemed to have going at the same time—were really nothing more than casual. But with Diana, I’m settled into one at last . . . . I’ve had different girl friends, but no one like Diana. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman!”

Though there was little definite talk about marriage between the two—at least publicly—no one could deny that the 22-year-old actor had found a soul-mate in Diana. They shared a love of flying, an excitement for life in general and a passion for acting that never subsided. When they met on the set of the TV-movie The Boy In The Plastic Bubble, Diana claimed “We clicked.” And after a few weeks of testing out the possibility of seeing each other, Diana allowed herself to feel neither guilt nor embarrassment over having an affair with a younger man. She claimed proudly: “We have a lovely relationship, really lovely. We see each other constantly when John isn’t working, and he calls me from the set of Welcome Back, Kotter every time there is a break.

“John adores my four-year-old son Zachary, and Zack adores him.”

Even John’s family, who was initially a little worried over the relationship, came around and Ellen Travolta, the actor’s older sister, became a staunch defender of the romance. “Johnny is absolutely in love with Diana,” she cooed. “Careers are wonderful, but if you’re not happy, not sharing with another person, they don’t mean much. This is the first time in Johnny’s career that his life has really been full. . . . Even if she’s older than John, you wouldn’t know it to see the two of them together. She’s full of life and very young physically. Certainly her spirit is young. And she makes John very happy. That’s the most important thing.”

And it was the most important thing to the couple—for months. John claims he had at last found the woman of his dreams, the lover, the mother, the companion, the “wife” he’d always been looking for. No matter that they didn’t have a marriage certificate; they were all but living together and living for each other—and that was all that was important to the young TV superstar. Diana represented security and warmth and stability to the young man who must have been overwhelmed by Hollywood itself and the success he had achieved so quickly. Diana, herself, had seen good times and bad times in Tinseltown, achieving a certain amount of fame on the first nighttime soaper Peyton Place. She made her movie debut in One Man’s Way, a drama about Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. However, the role of Mrs. Peale was quite different from most of her roles, which seemed to be typecast in the areas of nymphomaniac, alcoholic, drug addict, murderer or prostitute. Yet Diana reveled in such characterizations, admitting that she “loved playing complex characters. I think that complicated people are the most interesting—in real life as well as in fiction.”

Diana also added Broadway cudos to her resume when she appeared as Heavenly Finley—co-starring with Paul Newman in Tennessee Williams’s Sweet Bird Of Youth. According to drama critic Brooks Atkinson, Diana was excellent as the Southern Belle broken by life and love.

In her own personal life, Diana had also felt the desolation of a broken marriage, but she valiantly struggled to compensate by working harder and harder, perfecting her craft, and at the age of 41 she was at the height of her profession and ability.

Though the reports initially were somewhat sketchy about the cause of Diana’s death, it was later confirmed that cancer was definitely the cause. However, most people were astounded when they heard that Diana had succumbed to that dread disease, for it had been a well-kept secret that she had undergone a mastectomy some three years ago. At first, Diana and the doctors obviously thought they had stopped the disease dead in its tracks, but when she began complaining about a “back problem” during her last weeks, the doctors immediately put her in the hospital. Obviously the disease returned and this time it ran its course in record time. What many people had taken for overexertion, because of the TV series, in Diana, was probably the killer taking its toll on her poor, frail body.

Whether John Travolta knew of his love’s illness might never be known, for what passed between them in the privacy of their own time and home is theirs and theirs alone. No matter, John will always remember the few short months he had with Diana—and no doubt it will color other relationships in the future. Though merely a boy himself, he grew to his full manhood during his affair with Diana, accepting her completely, loving her physically and emotionally—and acting as a father figure to her little son Zachary. The child will probably go to live with Diana’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Gentner of Cleveland, Ohio, but John will always have a special relationship with him, he will always love him as the son he almost had, the legacy of his beloved Diana. . . .

THE END

—BY DONNY HOLMES

 

It is a quote. SCREEN STARS MAGAZINE JULY 1977