HOLLYWOOD -- There was a whole lotta shakin' goin' on in Hollywood this week.
Liquor, wine and beer flowed and mounds of backyard barbecue food was gobbled up at Paramount Home Entertainment's huge "Reunion Party" that featured John Travolta & friends on Wednesday night.
The extravagant event was tied to the launch of a series of DVDs, the first of which, Grease (1978), hit the stores this week. Five others -- Saturday Night Fever (1977), Urban Cowboy (1980), Staying Alive (1983), Flashdance (1983) and Footloose (1984) -- are set for their DVD debuts Oct. 8.
The news came as a surprise to Travolta, star of four of the six releases. With Kelly Preston at his side, Travolta told The Sun he was clueless: "I thought all of those movies were already out on DVD!" Oops: He only has the soundtracks on CD.
With a couple of thousand people crammed into the narrow Victorian streets of Paramount's famous back lot, the party stretched into the witching hours early yesterday. Highlights included the return of 1950s-style retro rockers Sha Na Na and a live singing and dancing duet between Grease co-stars Travolta and Australian warbler Olivia Newton-John, the first time the two have performed on stage together since a Newton-John concert in 1982.
After Newton-John sang a Hopelessly Devoted To You solo, she coaxed the latest lean, muscular and close-cropped version of Travolta up on stage to perform a duet with her on their kick-ass Grease love song You're The One That I Want. At one point, he picked her up and twirled her around -- but neither Travolta, 48, nor Newton-John, who turns 54 today, can move the way they did as youths in Grease.
It did not matter. To the screams of fans, other Grease co-stars, including Sha Na Na, Frankie Avalon and actress Didi (Frenchy) Conn, joined them on stage for Summer Nights.
The Reunion was for all available cast & crew of the six vintage movies, two of which, Grease and Saturday Night Fever, are still pop culture phenomena.
Typical enthusiastic fans at the party were stand-up comics Lisa Sundstedt, who sang back-up vocals with Sha Na Na a decade ago, and Maria Bamford, who played a waitress who kissed Travolta in the movie Lucky Numbers.
As Newton-John and Travolta sang, the two comics, both in their thirties, screamed, cheered and applauded like schoolgirls. "It's just amazing," Sundstedt said. "Can you imagine seeing this 24 years later? They have rekindled something that all of us have lived with for years. I'm 35 and I'm sure all of my friends know all of the words (to the songs from Grease)." As for Bamford, she still is fond of Travolta because she found him kind and gentlemanly while working with him on Lucky Numbers. "And he's such an icon!"
Not that Travolta would assume that. He is humble, despite being the star of the Reunion Party. He overshadowed Newton-John and guests Fran Drescher (who made her showbiz debut as Connie in Saturday Night Fever) and Sabrina star Soleil Moon Frye.
"I don't know exactly how that happens," Travolta told The Sun about the pop culture status earned by his early movies. "But I'm proud of it, every second of it, that history. I love it."
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