John Travolta Just Shared Two Secrets From the Set of “Saturday Night Fever”

The 1977 flick “Saturday Night Fever” is just one of those movies that never gets old—anyone agree? First off, we love a ‘70s-style John Travolta. And no matter how many times you watch it, it’s always just as good.

But there’s something to be said about watching a movie over and over and suddenly learning a few new facts about it—and seeing certain scenes in a whole new light.

More than 40 years later, star John Travolta recently revealed two facts about the movie that had us totally surprised! It was on a recent episode of Live! With Kelly and Ryan—and it appeared the hosts were just as shook as we were.

It turns out that two of John’s family members also played roles in the movie—his mom and sister! His sister played a waitress at a pizzeria in one of the scenes, and his mother was a customer at a paint store. We know the scenes he’s referring to, but we just never knew he was related to them!

“Unbelievable,” Kelly said after learning the news. It definitely is—and now that we watched the movie again, we can totally see the resemblance between all three of them!

This got us thinking about what else we don’t know about Saturday Night Fever. Here are some more little-known interesting facts about the iconic flick that totally blew us away.

  1. The iconic white suit could pay for your house.

    You know that white suit John wears in the movie? Of course you do. Well, Jane Fonda owned it at one point, and it sold for $145,000. Now? It’s worth up to $250,000! “I wish I’d kept it!” John said in the interview. Uh yeah—like you need that money, John!

  2. The suit was supposed to be black.

    Speaking of that suit—it was originally supposed to be black in color, not white. That’s the color men’s suits tended to be at the time it was filmed. It was the costume designer, Patrizia Von Brandenstein, who convinced them it should be white. We can’t even imagine it being black now!

  3. One of the dances was ad-libbed.

    In a rehearsal scene about an hour into the movie, you might remember Tony and Stephanie doing something called the “tango hustle.” John and actress Karen Lynn Gorney who played Stephanie kind of just made this dance up. They didn’t have a choice. The choreographer never showed up so they had to think quickly and improvise (and of course, there were no cell phones back then to send the choreographer a reminder text!).

  4. John’s popularity made it hard to film.

    He was such a heartthrob in the ’70s. But it was almost a little too much, especially since the crew was trying to film the movie on the streets of Brooklyn, and couldn’t keep fans away. Both girls and guys swarmed—girls just squealed in delight and the guys actually held signs about how they resented John for being more desirable than them!

    “The fans—oh, my God, they were all over him,” said Donna Pescow, another costar. “It was scary to watch.”

  5. It took a while for people to get sick of the soundtrack.

    There were 15 million copies of the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack sold in the U.S. alone, not to mention it ranked the top-selling soundtrack album of all time. It took 15 years for it to be supplanted by The Bodyguard. It remained number one on the Billboard charts for most of 1978 and stayed on the charts until 1980. Dang!

How many times have you seen Saturday Night Fever? Did you know John Travolta’s mom and sister were in the movie, or any of these facts?