{"id":486505,"date":"2026-05-15T19:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T19:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/486505\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T19:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T19:33:10","slug":"john-travolta-gets-cannes-award-as-grease-icon-gets-honorary-palme-dor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/486505\/","title":{"rendered":"John Travolta Gets Cannes Award as ‘Grease’ Icon Gets Honorary Palme d’Or"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJohn Travolta<\/a> got a major Cannes surprise ahead of the world premiere of his directorial debut \u201cPropeller One-Way Night Coach<\/a>\u201d when the festival presented him with an honorary Palme d\u2019Or, which is the Cannes equivalent of a lifetime achievement prize. Travolta was shocked and overwhelmed by the surprise honor, holding back tears while saying: \u201cThis is beyond the Oscar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSurprise compl\u00e9tement!\u201d an emotional Travolta exclaimed in French as the crowd erupted into rapturous applause. \u201cI can\u2019t believe this. This is the last thing I expected.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTurning to Cannes director Thierry Fremaux, Travolta added, \u201cYou said this would be a special night, but I didn\u2019t know it would mean this.\u201d Fremaux responded: \u201cWe knew!\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is a humbling moment, so thank you Thierry from the bottom of my heart,\u201d Travolta continued. \u201cWhen I met with you in November, I had no expectation that my film would be accepted. And when Thierry said it was not only accepted but it was making history because it would be the first film ever accepted that early, I cried like a baby because I just couldn\u2019t believe it. Because in my opinion, you are the most discerning person in the movie industry. I was just happy to be here! I never expected this. Thank you so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTravolta, who has been nominated for the best actor Oscar twice, attended Cannes this year to premiere \u201cPropeller One-Way Night Coach,\u201d his Apple-backed film based on his 1997 children\u2019s book of the same name. The autobiographical family movie \u2014 which he called the \u201cmost personal film he\u2019s ever done\u201d \u2014 unfolds in the golden age of aviation as a young airplane enthusiast Jeff (Clark Shotwell) and his mother (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett) set off on a one-way, cross-country odyssey to Hollywood. The movie also stars Travolta\u2019s daughter, Ella Bleu Travolta.<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing the screening of the hour-long film, Travolta strode back onstage for a conversation with Fremaux, where he discussed how his love of aviation was born in his childhood. Travolta said he cried when Fremaux told him he\u2019d selected the film for Cannes five months ahead of the festival \u2014 even though Apple had already acquired the film.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhy this film exists and actually why I exist as an artist is because of that group of people right there,\u201d Travolta said, pointing to his family in the crowd. \u201cMy oldest sister, Ellen, was really this character, the lead in this film. But it\u2019s really a mixture of my sister and my mother because they both influenced me so deeply, and they were responsible for all my hopes and dreams, and they watched me make them come true. So this is just a little taste of my origins and what it was like to be me when I was little. So I hope you enjoyed it. It means the world to me that you\u2019re here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tCannes announced before the 2026 festival started that Peter Jackson and Barbra Streisand would be receiving honorary Palme d\u2019Or statues on the opening and closing nights of the festival, respectively. But Cannes has gotten into a habit of giving out at least one surprise honorary Palme each year, with Spike Lee getting awarded last year ahead of the world premiere of \u201cHighest 2 Lowest.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tTravolta\u2019s prior history with the Cannes Film Festival<\/a> include screenings of \u201cPulp Fiction\u201d (1994), \u201cShe\u2019s So Lovely\u201d (1997) and \u201cPrimary Colors\u201d (1998). Tarantino\u2019s \u201cPulp Fiction\u201d won the Palme d\u2019Or, while Travolta\u2019s co-star Sean Penn was awarded the best actor prize for \u201cShe\u2019s So Lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPropeller One-Way Night Coach\u201d starts streaming May 29 on Apple TV. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Travolta got a major Cannes surprise ahead of the world premiere of his directorial debut \u201cPropeller One-Way…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[268],"tags":[11519,434,18,117,19,17,39533,212413],"class_list":{"0":"post-486505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-cannes-film-festival","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-john-travolta","15":"tag-propeller-one-way-night-coach"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}